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Evaluation of an Internet-Based, Bibliographic Database: Results of the NASA STI Program's ASAP User Test

This document summarizes the feedback gathered during the user-testing phase in the development of an electronic library application: the Aeronautics and Space Access Pages (ASAP). It first provides some historical background on the NASA Scientific and Technical Information (STI) program and its efforts to enhance the services it offers the aerospace community. Following a brief overview of the ASAP project, it reviews the results of an online user survey, and from the lessons learned therein, outlines direction for future development of the project. INTRODUCTION The NASA Scientific and Technical Information program (STI) provides a number of services and products to the air and space community. One of the most important of those products is the NASA STI Database a bibliographic database of NASA and non-NASA aerospace information consisting of more than 3 million records. In 1998, the STI Program initiated an overhaul of this database which was to include • a more precise standard of cataloging and displaying metadata • a web-based graphical user interface with appropriate security controls; and • access to available document images. A sixty-day period of user testing was held between August and October of 1999. The results of and insights gained from this test are the subject of this report. BACKGROUND The NASA STI Program, through its processing facility at the Center for AeroSpace Information (CASI) maintains a repository of NASA and other technical literature, and administers a 3 million record bibliographic database representing this and other air and space research. This collection dates back to the early part of the twentieth century and is arguably the world’s foremost source of air and space research. While the database has existed for over 35 years, its hardware and software platforms have been migrated and updated numerous times in order to keep up with changes in information technology. One important technological improvement took place in 1995, when the CASI introduced document imaging capabilities to its facility. An electronic document management system (EDMS) was developed and entered production phase in 1996. Since that time, all literature received at the facility has been stored digitally using the standard known as Tagged Image File Format (TIFF). The most recent modernization began in late 1997 with the development of a pair of prototypical web-based interfaces. One used the contents and database management system of the STI program’s production system (a first generation client-server application known as RECONplus), replacing its character-based interface with a web front-end. The second prototype converted data contained in an older, mainframe-based database implementation (known as RECON) to a new server platform, again providing a web-based user interface. Members of the NASA STI community tested both these prototypes during the following year. While each system had its merits, neither was found to be completely satisfactory. The RECONplus implementation lacked a back reference mechanism (a strategy which many professional searchers rely upon for narrowing searches) and required a fairly substantial software upgrade. The RECON derivative, because its underlying structure had no mechanism for storing EDMS metadata, could not be integrated with the TIFF document images. Neither system provided an effective means for limiting access on a record-level basis.