User-Centred Requirements for Document Structure in the Humanities

Electronic document standards such as TEI and METS provide the means to digitally encode sophisticated hierarchical document structures. This naturally leads to digital libraries using document structure to support user navigation, which can be particularly useful for large or complex documents that are studied closely by their readers, e.g. those found in large historical and literary source texts. In response to this growing use, we present a set of user requirements for document structure in humanities digital libraries, illustrated with three digital collections from this domain. We discuss how well existing technologies satisfy these requirements and make recommendations for the use of document standards and the design of digital libraries.