Museums and the Online Archive of California II User Evaluation (MOAC II)

The Museums and the Online Archive of California II User Evaluation (MOAC II) is a two-year project funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services examining digital museum content for use in education and research. MOAC II is an advancement of MOAC (1998-present), a major collaboration involving integration of collection descriptions and images using community-based standards. MOAC is the museum component of the Online Archive of California (OAC). The OAC is a core component of the California Digital Library (CDL) and is a digital information resource that facilitates and provides access to materials such as manuscripts, photographs and works of art held in libraries, museums, archives and other institutions across California.

The MOAC II evaluation targets four user contexts: 1) K-12 teachers; 2) university students; 3) academics in the humanities and social sciences and 4) museum professionals, librarians and archivists. Among the research questions, MOAC II examines why users use digital museum objects, what users need to understand about museum objects as sources of information and evidence, and how digital museum objects might be used to enhance classroom teaching at K-12, undergraduate and graduate levels. Evaluation will be the basis for MOAC II partners to recommend strategies to the OAC Manager, CDL University Librarian and wider museum, library and archives communities for improving the value of digital resources and encouraging their use in education and research.

MOAC II partners include the California Digital Library, Bancroft Library, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, UCR/Museum of Photography, Fowler Museum of Cultural History, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Anne Gilliland-Swetland, UCLA Department of Information Studies, leads the research team.

MOAC II user evaluation:

Anne Gilliland-Swetland

UCLA Department of Information Studies
swetland@ucla.edu

Management and administration:

Robin L. Chandler
Online Archive of California
The California Digital Library
robin.chandler@ucop.edu

MOAC II project management:

Layna White

Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts

UCLA Hammer Museum

lwhite@arts.ucla.edu

MOAC project management:

Richard Rinehart

Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive

rinehart@uclink.berkeley.edu