M. Kröll
In the German speaking language area, various projects on web-based subject gateways focusing on Contemporary History have been built up during the last ten years. Today, after cooperation and certain merging activities among some of these projects during the last three years, three major autonomous projects of that specialization have remained, essentially working in parallel. The latter three projects share the common pretence of being the main reference of its kind, but nevertheless differ substantially with regard to certain project characteristics, such as their date of establishment or disposable resources.
This paper provides a comparative analysis of www.zeitgeschichte-online.de, www.vl-zeitgeschichte.de and zis.uibk.ac.at as the three major German-speaking web-based subject gateways over a period of six months.
The analysis will be based on the following criteria:
• Web- and metadata standards’ compatibility and correct use
• Classification Analysis:
Which categories have been used?
Do they follow bibliographic standards?
• Common Resource Identifiers Analysis:
Have identical URL entries been classified differently?
Are there duplicate pointers to the same resource (identified by checksums and title heuristics) with different URIs?
• Subject focus
Which foci can be observed in the field of Contemporary History?
Is the sum of certain subject-related URLs proportionate to their representation in the web-frontend?
• Accessibility Tests
• Usability Tests
• Update ratio of content (total number, peak activity intervals)
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