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In late February I virtually attended the Designing For Digital conference, an annual event designed to “bring together UX professionals, web designers, managers, researchers, strategists and librarians of all types” to explore topics related to UX in libraries. Returning for the third year to this event, I’d like to reflect on topic trends I observed, and how I think these trends reflect the challenges and shifting contexts that library UX practitioners have faced this past year because of the impacts of COVID-19.

The recent launch of DIMES, the Rockefeller Archive Center’s (RAC) new system for archival discovery and delivery, is now a month behind us. Having now had a moment to breathe and reflect, I’d like to share some details about the RAC’s collaborative user experience (UX) research and testing strategies for this project, and how those strategies connect to our broader goal to operationalize user experience (UX) practice at the Rockefeller Archive Center.

We are excited to announce the launch of our new archival discovery system at the Rockefeller Archive Center. This next generation of DIMES - which we’ve been calling DIMES-TNG - is a major overhaul of both our public-facing website for searching archival collections and accessing digitized content, as well as its underlying infrastructure. The launch of this site marks the final major milestone for Project Electron, an RAC effort to build sustainable, user-centered, and standards-compliant infrastructure to support the ongoing acquisition, management, and preservation of archival digital records in order to make archival records available in the broadest and most equitable way possible. As the piece that focuses specifically on access, DIMES-TNG is the culmination of Project Electron.

The RAC partnered with the City College of New York in 2018 to develop the RAC-CCNY Internship Program to introduce the archival profession to undergraduate students. During this past fall semester, the program shifted to a remote internship. Here is a reflection on the experience by one of our interns.

I found my place at the Rockefeller Archive Center despite never having stepped foot in the building. The COVID-19 pandemic has presented many challenges, one being “How do you successfully complete an internship remotely?” My experience at the RAC was defined not only by a variety of projects, but by thought-provoking, insightful discussion making this internship a formative experience in my college career. At a time when I’ve increasingly questioned my purpose and what I stand for, I found many answers within the archival profession.

2020 has been a tough year. I think many of us felt, and still feel, overwhelmed, depressed and hopeless. In that context, when I took my annual look back at the D-Team’s progress over the past year, I was expecting to see reduced activity and productivity. Instead, what I found was the opposite - this year we completed a number of large-scale initiatives, any one of which would have, in years past, occupied us for much of the year: