Assessing Value from the Digital Collection End-User: The Western Writers Series Digital Editions Experience

How end-users and stakeholders value a digital collection is one of the most compelling questions in library assessment.This presentation reports on a series of interviews with stakeholders and potential end-users of the digital collection “Western Writers Series Digital Editions.” These interviews were undertaken to determine in what ways these digital humanities materials might be used by scholars and incorporated into their research process. Interview participants were identified through scholarly citations and works cited lists. The outcomes of these interviews are supplemented by additional interviews with the editors of the original print editions of the Western Writers Series, as well as the librarians who host the materials. This holistic view of the multiple stakeholders involved in a library’s digital collection presents a more refined picture of how such resources may be valued by end-users.