Unit 10 - an effective federated repository

I looked at the OAIster database sponsored by the University of Michigan digital library. I couldn’t get a sense of what the collections were. All the landing page states is that it provides access to millions of digital objects from thousands of contributors. It wasn’t like the Europeana federated repository, where the first thing you see on the landing page is a featured Art Noveau exhibit. This was a great way to be introduced to the site. I’m not too excited to search a federated repository that features nothing. Of course, if I know something already about this repository then I guess I wouldn’t need a polished looking landing page, but really, how many people will the site lose by not highlighting one or more of its partner collections?

I then visited the Sheet Music Consortium. The funny thing is that I entered a keyword search for Swan Songs. The first two records that came up for memorium songs to Bert Williams, an African American vaudeville performer who was active during the early 20th century. There were no results for swan songs in quotations.

I also looked at Nora (Noreweigian Open Resource Archive), and thought it was interesting how you could limit the topic by what appears to be a Mac file structure. All of the results were listed in Norweigian. I thought this was an interesting interface, especially the way in which the topics were divided according to the file structure.

The interface with the best design was by far the Sheet Music Consortium, but it was the only site that seemed to have made an attempt at creating a visually appealing landing page. This is where a federated repository such as Europeana is far and away a more appealing interface, regardless of Erway’s measured criticisms.