Defining relationships between Social Interaction and Discoverability of Digital Resources in Memory Institutions

This paper gives an overview of a research project aimed to compare and clarify the relations between social interaction and discoverability of digital resources in three types of memory institutions: libraries, archives and muse- ums. The main research questions are: how and to what extent social interaction is related to discoverability, what are the similarities and differences across the three types of institutions within this context, and what is the role of the aca- demic community in the process? The multi-method empirical research enhanc- es three case studies: a library, an archive and a museum from a single country context, United Kingdom. Each case study maps the phenomenon of crowdsourcing within the organization, then the social interaction emerged in Twitter will be described on national level, and the effect will be estimated and evaluated taking into account qualitative data. Comparative analysis between the organizations concludes the research cycle. The results are expected to con- tribute to effective design and maintenance of a discoverable digital library, sustainable user engagement, and collaboration between the organizations