The Benefits of using an Online Library

A Digital Library is a networked collection of digital objects, text, still images, moving images, sound, data - with arrangement, search features and meta data that allow for discovery and presentation.

For ScotEID, the library primarily supports the web site and its users, by providing online and direct access, to assist them in their use of ScotEID, in the form of how to’s, guides, work instructions and wiki page content.

• Available on ScotEID.com by embedding guides and other means
• Available 24 / 7
• Public Access
• Available on phone and tablet
• Easy and intuitive to use
• Providing a consistent structure using predefined formats resulting in a ‘learn only once’ and a standard ‘look and feel’
• Type of content within a guide can include forms, published papers, guidance notes
• Searchable content

• Helps us to achieve consistency in our approach to providing help and guidance.
• Guides and guide steps use a pre-defined structure.
• It’s quick to create content and this assists in keeping the guides in line with website changes.
• For an instruction used through out ScotEID, such as ‘Using the table search’, this is created only once and embedded in other guides and the links are automatically maintained. These are referred to as pre-requisite guides.
• Content build can be created and reviewed by multiple authors.

• The breakdown of our existing user guides into multiple guides and steps significantly speeds up the time to make amendments.
• Content is not repeated and therefore only needs to be updated in one place.
• Dozuki handles the version control and tracks who has made the changes and when.
• All content is searchable to assist in ensuring any relevant guide has been updated.
• Additional guides and steps can be created quickly and easily to support web page amendments without republishing every guide in that category
• Forms and text context can be created and maintained as wiki pages and embedded in guides with instructions if required.

• Automated version control
• Built in approval processes - can create to suit our needs
• Change histories are maintained
• Author tracking
• Publishing control - you can choose to publish changes to a guide at any time or on a specific date
• Increased portability - categories, guides and wiki pages can all be quickly moved within the Library
• PDFs -if need be, content such as guides and wiki pages can be used to create pdfs.

• Digital perservation
• Unlimited storage
• Fully supported and maintained site

If you have any questions, please contact Debbie.dow@saos.coop or Colin.Hunter@saos.coop.