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The purpose of this paper is to highlight the potential of web components for libraries.

The paper introduces a working example web component that reimplements an OCLC WorldCat search widget.

By exploring the case study, the paper explains the functioning of web components and the potential advantages of web components for library web development.

Increasingly, web components are being used within library web development, but there is scope for much greater use of this technology to the advantage of those libraries involved.

This paper introduces web components, one of the most exciting and potentially transformative of the technologies that comprise HTML5. Web components provide a standardised method of creating and sharing custom HTML elements.

This paper is a viewpoint.

The paper proposes that the web development curriculum in library and information science (LIS) graduate programs needs to expand to cover this important topic.

Despite the potentially seismic impact of web components on Web development, up until this point, there has not been a discussion of this technology within the LIS literature.

The use of XML in the lifecycle of e‐journals has recently emerged as a hot topic in the library world. This burst of interest is largely due to proposals to use XML in e‐journal archiving and also a growing awareness of the advantages of XML for metadata. But the publishing community are increasingly viewing XML as playing a central role in the future of the entire e‐journals process. The papers in this special issue cover a breadth of opinion but there is a common theme; namely, that XML and its related technologies can help to fulfil the promise of e‐journals.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the process and implications of usability testing a prototype version of the Letters of 1916 Digital Edition.

The paper presents the testing, the lessons learned and how those lessons informed the subsequent redesign of the site.

Results imply that a majority of users, even digital humanists, were not looking for a unique and specialised interface, but assumed – and preferred – a user experience that reflects common search systems. Although the audience for digital humanities sites is becoming increasingly diverse, the needs of the different user groups may be more similar than had previously been assumed.

The usability test employed 11 participants, five of whom were coded as “general public”. Four of these five had previously volunteered to transcribe and upload letters. This meant that they were already familiar with the project and with the Letters of 1916 Transcription Desk. However, their prior involvement was a result of their genuine interest in the site, thus ensuring that their interactions during testing were more realistic.

The lesson learned may be useful for the Digital Editions of future crowdsourced humanities projects.

Letters of 1916 is the first crowdsourced humanities project in Ireland. The theme of the project is topical, emotive and socially important in Ireland and among Irish diaspora today. The project’s content has been created by the “ordinary citizens of Ireland” and they are likely to be the major users of the Digital Edition. The study explores how the Digital Edition can support these users, while also facilitating the range of traditional scholars and digital humanities researchers.

XForms are the future of data entry on the Web. Their advancement to W3C Candidate Recommendation status in November 2002 has been followed by a variety of implementations. Although they are not yet natively supported by the major browsers, it is becoming increasingly obvious that they will be a central component of the Web. This column describes a simple digital library application of XForms that illustrates their superiority over the current generation of HTML forms.

Now that XML is five years old, is it time for e‐libraries to start exploiting its full potential by delivering it to the end user rather than converting it to HTML first? What, if any, would be the advantages to users and providers? Could browsers cope? And is it worth the bother?

This editorial aims to introduce a special issue of Library Hi Tech on “Virtual research environments: issues and opportunities for librarians”. It defines the concept of the virtual research environment (VRE), describes its relationship both to the virtual learning environment and to Web 2.0, and proposes that librarians play a central role in VRE development and use.

The VRE is likely to have a huge impact on many aspects of research and, thus, on the role of the academic and the research librarian. If VREs are to fulfill their potential as useful and usable artifacts, librarians need to have a central role in their development and application.

Librarians need to be proactive in identifying and advocating for their potential roles in VRE development and use. These roles need to be taken into account in the curricula of schools of library and information studies.

This is an ideal time for librarians to explore the potential of VREs because there is still time to influence their eventual form.

Within the library world, there is a growing interest in the use of XML in journals, not least because of its implications for e‐journal archiving. But what is actually happening in the commercial journals market? How far have XML and its related standards permeated the production of real commercial journals and how do publishers and other providers of journals see this area developing? This paper looks at the activities and future plans of a selection of publishers and aggregators in the STM journals market, although many of the comments relate to the entire journals arena.

The purpose of this paper is to discover the research practices of biology researchers and to assess the suitability of the OJAX++ Virtual Research Environment (VRE) for these researchers.

Usability testing was used to evaluate the usability of OJAX++ in relation to biology researchers. Interviews with biology researchers in a large Irish university were conducted to investigate their research information behaviour, to establish user requirements in their discipline and to evaluate the feasibility of using OJAX++ in their research.

The results show that biology researchers used online tools extensively in their research but do not use social networking tools. E-mail and phone conversations are the preferred methods of collaborating with colleagues. The biology researchers found that OJAX++ was easy to use, intuitive and professionally presented but in its present format, OJAX++ does not fit in with current research practices as they do not use Web 2.0 tools that facilitate tagging. A list of requirements of a VRE for biology researchers is presented.

The findings of the study will assist developers of VREs and other web tools to better understand how researchers, in particular biologists, collaborate during the research process and what they require from online research tools. This study gives an important insight into the information behaviour of life science researchers.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a case study of the development, features and evaluation of a rich internet application for libraries. It aims to demonstrate best practice in the use of software standards, development processes and evaluation.

Web 2.0, open source design methods and usability testing were used within an agile framework.

The adoption of agile software development methods, coupled with usability testing, would enable the library community to take full advantage of the techniques and principles inherent in Web 2.0 open source software.

A major component of the evaluation of OJAX was a series of usability tests. As is the nature of most usability studies, the results are not generalisable.

Aspects of agile software development methods, such as usability testing and iterative design, are recognised in the literature as contributing to the usability of library software. However, exploration of the use of a full agile framework plus usability testing to facilitate Web 2.0 open source software is rare in library‐related literature.