From the arcane to the lucid: a case study of improvements to a library database using visual cues

As we move from analogue to digital new systems are being developed for searching and finding physical documents in archival stores. However, many digital database systems do not provide the efficiencies promised. Indeed, many make the original task harder. This short paper discusses the migration of an existing, analogue, paper-based catalogue to a digital database. It highlights the shortcomings of the new text-only digital database and outlines a series of incremental changes to this database using visual cues with user studies between each leading to a more efficient system. The findings of this study are transferable to other contexts.