Thoughts on designing a user centred library website.

1. designing a human literate library
for the digital age
Tom Scott
Head of Digital Engagement | Wellcome Collection

2. wellcome collection is a free
museum & library exploring health,
life and our place in the world
we seek to create opportunities for people to think deeply about the connections
between science, medicine, life and art by making thought-provoking content and
improving access to the diverse perspectives represented by our collections and
through research

3. wellcome library
inspired by the collections
assembled by Henry Wellcome, we
encourage great ideas about health
by connecting science, medicine,
life and art.

4. a history of medicine library?
yes, but not only… medical professionals and scientists are people too.
In acquiring their archives we also acquire their life’s work both
professional and personal

5. Thomas Hodgkin
(1798-1866)
pathologist (Hodgkin’s
Lymphoma) and…
• an anti-slavery agitator
• a general social reformer
• a traveller
• a Quaker…

6. John Dixon
(1832-1930)
Medical Officer of Health for
Bermondsey but his papers also
include:
• writings on languages
• board games
• photography
• writings on cacti

7. library of human life
everything we do happens within the human body; wellcome library is
therefore a box of human stories covering everything from conception
and birth to illness and death and everything in between.

10. but people don’t know that,
they don’t know what’s in the
library…
1

11. what’s in the library? | alpha.wellcomelibrary.org

12. people don’t necessarily
know what they are searching
2

13. what do we
have?
images and metadata

14. lack of context
3

15. John Moore (1620-1702)
Loving brother
London 19 June 1665
I hope these lines will finde you and yo[ur]s and all our freinds in the country
well as blessed {be god} I am and all my family so long as god pleaseth: for we
have {a} very crasie sickly time att London since June came in and are very
fearefull it will grow worse every weeke while summer weather continues. for
the plague increaseth much and spreads it selfe very strangely in the Citty and
suburbs. 17 dyed one week 43 next and last weeke 112 of the plague and of all
diseases 558 {last weeke} and much feared this weeks bill will farr exceed the
last. it comes not out till Thursday morning. Now knowing young persons are
most apt to take infection, [I] thought good to give you an accompt of it, to have
your advice about Cusen John, to know your mind - whether you do not desire
him home againe, or judge it the best way to have him into the Country againe
till these sickly times be gone againe, and lett me know yo[ur] mind p[er] next,
if you think fitt to lett him continue at London, I shalbe as carefull of him as my
selfe, but as I said before youth is in more danger to take infection then older
p[er]sons and if the sicknesse increases we shall have nothing to doe for it will
put a stopp to all businesse: If god in mercy to us all put not a stopp to it. pray
remember me & wife to yo[ur] brother George & sister & our Cusens Mr Mould &
other friends as you see them with kinde love to yo[ur] selfe rest
your lov[ing] brother
John Moore

16. london’s dreadful
visitation
or, a collection of all the Bills of
Mortality for this present year:
beginning the 27th of December
1664 and ending the 19th of
December following.

17. paper catalogues digital catalogues
searchable
🙁 😃
understandable
😃 😩
We have atomised the collections to the point where you can find
everything but have no idea what you’re looking at!

18. provide access for all
4

19. digital access digitisation and open licensing

20. reading
experience
libraries are designed to provide a
great reading experience

21. why not online?

22. this isn’t about designing a ‘digital
library’; it’s about looking at the
contextual experience of our users

23. digital is a platform unto itself not
(just) a catalogue for the physical
library

24. we need to design a digital platform
that helps users

25. …by encapsulating a librarian!

26. how are we going do that?

27. design a digital
platform that’s as
smart as a puppy…
• helpful not passive
• pays attention
• try to do what you want not what
you ask for
• learns

28. single domain model

29. traditional hierarchical model but the world isn’t hierarchical and
knowledge is hidden

30. series model no way in! users need a top level entry
point to collate and give context.

31. hybrid model collection level descriptions as
authority files

33. combining data
stored in such a way that we can choose
on a case-by-case basis whether to use
it/ how to use each dataset
Platform
datasources

34. combining data
Adapt
Transform
Ingest
API
data source
to domain
to search
for clients
wellcomecollection.org
anyone…

35. understanding intent

36. paying attention to the context of
queries
find the right collection
find the right box
find what’s in the box
search an item (book) in the box

37. dates
the data is complicated but not complex
• multiple date systems
• numerous modifiers
• ambiguous dates e.g. Spring Time
• fuzzy dates (19th century)
the complexity comes when dealing with the front end. How to
present this information, know what people intend, facet data, use it for
recommendations.

38. extracting meaning

39. optical character recognition
printed text can be OCR’ed easily enough to identify:
• text
• tables
• figures and images

40. what about handwriting?

41. right hand
Lord Nelson

42. left hand
Lord Nelson

43. image recognition and entity
extraction

44. rekognition
AWS thinks this is:
• people (98.9%)
• person (98.9%)
• human (98.9%)
• brochure (70.3%)
• flyer (70.3%)
• poster (70.3%)

45. rekognition
AWS thinks this is:
• people (99%)
• person (99%)
• human (98.9%)
• playground (55.2%)
• lighting (52.4%)

46. OK can be good enough
Accuracy matters more if you link/display the relationship but
e.g. knowing an entity is a person can be enough to improve
search results or find related material.
The data might not be good enough to display but can be
used as a hint to an algorithm to modify the sort order etc.
Can also use other data to improve the guesses…

47. synonyms in context

48. changing use of language

49. triangulate multiple data sources

50. providing context

51. provenance

52. the adamson collection

53. telling stories
that we know because we
research our collections

54. bidirectional links between stories,
exhibitions & items in the collection
what about books, articles etc. not
in the collections?

55. t.scott@wellcome.ac.uk | @derivadow
THANK YOU | TOM SCOTT