Digital Infrastructure for Art Historical Research: thinking about user needs

During the past years, the large technological advancements have provided research communities with applications and services never considered before. However, as the increased implication of the new technologies in the Arts & Humanities have greatly affected the scholarly research process, the necessity to adapt digital tools and services to the needs of specific groups of researchers has considerably grown. The present paper aims to focus on the informational and methodological behaviour of art historians, so as to identify possible requirements for providing them with functional digital infrastructure. Hence, their research profile, their needs in terms of resources and the methodologies they employ should be examined. The emphasis, in particular, should be given in research activities with great value for art historical research, such as the information seeking and the collection of the required information objects. By supporting these first, stages of research with digital tools and services tailored to the needs of researchers would, actually, facilitate the whole research process in the field. Finally, this paper reports on research conducted for the author’s current PhD Thesis “Personal Research Collections: examining research practices and user needs in art historical research”, under the supervision of Prof. Claire Warwick and Mr Simon Mahony.