Researchers want better access to and personal control over resources

The recent Research Portals for Arts and Humanities (RePAH) study found that ‘researchers are more concerned with access to content than functionality’. Additionally, it found that greater personal control over digital resources is seen as a priority. Developments such as RSS, advanced bookmarking features and personal editing features can be seen as part of this preference. The implication is that we shouldn't be thinking so much in terms of providing sophisticated functionality as providing content and enabling users to access the content in flexible ways that suit their methods of working. In this environment, researchers may place less value on the information professional as the gatekeeper and interpreter of resources. The whole question of authority becomes a very interesting one. Many people seem to be happy to use ‘unauthorised’ sources for their research (citing Wikipedia is one such example) but many researchers continue to feel that peer review is an essential process within research publication. The impression given by the report is that arts and humanities researchers (and most probably researchers in other disciplines) want better linkage between resources and the ability to search across distributed data. Ahhh, we come back to interoperability, which is something that the Archives Hub, and indeed the Society of Archivists' Data Standards Group (which I am the training officer for) both promote whenever we get the chance. Do have a look at the portlet demonstrator if you get the chance. It provides a good illustration of the idea of user control within a portal environment.