DIGITAL ACCESS TO CULTURAL HERITAGE

A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW ON SEARCHING FOR INFORMATION AND USER ENGAGEMENT IN DIGITAL PLATFORMS

Abstract

This work aimed to identify, in the scientific literature, relevant questions about the search for information and user engagement during the research process on digital access platforms to library, archive and museum collections. As a preliminary step to this research, a systematic mapping of the literature or scope study was carried out in Capes database, in which it was obtained as a result the selection, analysis of abstracts and classification of 86 articles in theoretical and practical nature and grouped into seven categories, emerged by the similarity between the topics covered. The result of the systematic mapping was used to carry out the systematic review of the literature of the present research, based on the methodological approach of Gohr et al. (2013). Articles classified as theoretical and belonging to four of the seven categories were considered for analysis, which were in line with the objective of this research. A total of twenty-three articles were obtained, which had their titles and abstracts read to identify which ones answered the proposed research question. As a final result, six articles were selected to have their full text read. The identified studies presented important points about what has an influence on the search and user engagement, with both broad and specific considerations, which were grouped into seven themes: (1) importance of search engines in online cultural heritage environments; (2) control of the digital search process; (3) mediation in the digital search activity (4) information system interface; (5) user familiarity with the functioning of popular research tools (6) engagement; (7) advantage of the experts' expertise. At the end, a summary table of the main points discussed is presented. This study is an integral part of the ongoing Phd research project in Design, on cultural heritage platforms.