How William & Mary Libraries Significantly Improved User Experience, Cut Maintenance Time, and Created a Digital Collection They Could be Proud of.

William & Mary (W&M) Libraries is the library system for William & Mary, a public university located in Williamsburg, Virginia. It includes seven libraries and is open to all, including outside researchers, alumni, and local community members. The libraries' origins date back to 1698, when Virginia’s royal governor, Sir Francis Nicholson, donated his personal library of more than 200 volumes. By the end of the Revolutionary War, the nearly 3,000 books in the library made it the second largest of its kind in North America, after Harvard. Today, W&M Libraries supports and enhances teaching and research, and fosters intellectual curiosity, creativity and lifelong learning.

William & Mary Libraries is known for its diverse and vast collection of materials. The trouble was that its legacy digital collection system, DSpace, couldn’t easily display its collections, including video, audio, and images. Rather than users being able to view, read, and listen to the various assets directly on the platform, they had to download large media files– which was slow and not secure. It was also hard to search, had limited customization opportunities, and wasn’t visually appealing.

The Digital Services Department needed a modern platform where all materials could be played, used, read, and heard in the system and on the web. “With our previous system you had to download the entire file which may take a long time to open or in the end, not open at all,” said Justin Dalton, Interim Head of Digital Services.

In the search for a new digital collection and service provider, W&M Libraries evaluated many systems, including building a system of their own. “Ultimately we decided on Islandora because it could manage the materials we had very well. It had flexibility and could be crafted and customized in an easier manner”, said Deborah Cornell, Digital Projects Librarian. “With Islandora, the user experience is significantly better and end users are much happier.” Improvements included the overall esthetic, accessibility, a responsive design that can be viewed on any device, and better operation— the ability to interact with materials, view books, and play media within the browser.

Discovery Garden was selected as the professional services organization to build, install, and maintain the W&M digital collection. “We chose Discovery Garden because of their good reputation and expertise”, said Justin. “They deliver a good product and are easy to work with.” He remarked that their response time to support tickets is 2-3 hours, but one of the key parts of the partnership that they really enjoy is the updates. “One of the greatest benefits is the amount of time they save me doing basic maintenance, upgrading versions and doing updates. That time that we don’t have to spend setting up, configuring, and maintaining, is very valuable”, said Justin.  

Another added benefit of a more modern and flexible digital collection is the collaboration it has facilitated with other departments at the university. They now have the ability to build mini-sites for other groups on campus. They can use their own brand but are still connected with the library. “We were very interested in building partnerships across campus and being a resource and support in the sense of materials, people, knowledge and expertise. Discovery Garden has helped us accomplish this”, said Deborah.

“Now with Islandora and Discovery Garden, our team goes out and talks about our digital collections with pride– it looks so good, shows off our collections really well, and is heavily used,” said Justin. “After working with other systems and knowing where we came from, it was a relief to launch our new Islandora-based digital collection,” said Deborah. “We knew all of the collections we had were just sitting there, not being fully utilized. Now they’re presentable and accessible. I’m immensely proud of it and the way it showcases our collection”, said Deborah.