User Experience and Web 2.0 in the production, distribution, and access of archival information in Portugal: a literature review

Abstract

The dissemination and communication of information are functions of archival services and are those that allow access to the content of archival records and visibility of the work carried out; functions that are at the end of the line of all the others performed a priori (collecting, safeguarding, conservation, organization and description) and alongside the last one, access (because it depends on the fulfilment of the previous ones), whose relevance matters to the producer or the external researchers. Traditionally, access to information in archives is done through finding aids such as guides, inventories, catalogues, and indexes, available in analogue format or equivalent in a digital environment (PDF). The transition from access of (physical) finding aids to digital, accompanied by the increasing digitization and availability of collections on institutional websites, has changed the way in which information is mediated between archivist and archival users. The increase in the availability of records in digital format has meant that information, which was previously only available to a restricted group of researchers, is now accessible to a wider group. If archives are more interested in making massively large sets of documents available and less or not at all focused on their understanding and usability, the archival descriptions produced are sometimes, or in most cases, too technical and require the need and ability to be explain by reference services, in what some authors identify as an “extended mediation”. Users’ studies in archives, including those on usability and User Experience, have concluded of the inadequacy and misunderstanding of the finding aids by archive users. In the process of analysing this result, finding aids have undergone a significant change in terms of approaching the needs of users. The mediation of information in archives has undergone an extremely significant change in focus, associated with the rapid evolution of information and communication technologies, namely web 2.0. Simultaneously, in memory institutions, the appeal to user participation through web 2.0 introduced collaborative practices of information representation, with very interesting results, introducing new forms of relationship between information services and their users (real and potential), paving the way for user-generated content. The aim of this article is, based on the literature review on the topic of new finding aids, highlighting the new practices brought by web 2.0, namely collaborative practices and the input brought by the user who is also a content producer, to reflect on the Portuguese reality in this field. It seeks to analyse the context of User Experience and web 2.0 in the production, distribution, and access of archival information in Portugal, highlighting user studies and possible reflection on the representation of information, although previous studies carried out by the authors conclude that there is a lack of reflection and production scientific and academic on the subject. The literature review will be carried out through research on the google scholar platform, for the United States, Italy, France, Spain and the United Kingdom, countries that influence the understanding of archiving in Portugal. For the research in Brazil and Portugal, the RCAAP platform was used, which aggregates information in both countries. Both surveys will have the last decade of the 21st century as their temporal arc.