What's next?

This chapter has stressed the importance of identifying the decisions to be affected by a digital library evaluation up front, and then aligning evaluation questions and methods with those anticipated decisions. A model of how to prepare an evaluation plan has also been presented.

Now it is time to go into detail about various approaches to digital library evaluation such as service evaluation, usability testing, and information retrieval. Careful review of these approaches will provide the guidance you need to plan, implement, and report your evaluation activities in such a way that they impact important decisions in a timely manner.