Case in point: The Library’s monthly newsletter.

Not even thinking about all the work that goes into the content creation, once that has happened, this is what our Publicity Officer does to get it to our users.

She creates the newsletter in In Design. She then creates a jpeg of it for our website. Then there is the Shockwave file for users to be able to read it like a magazine online. Then for those who don’t want to, or can’t read it like that, she creates single pages of the newsletter and saves it as a pdf.  Then lastly there is the HTML file for the subscribers, which is emailed out once everything has been tested to within an inch of its life. 

And that’s not including the work that goes into the print versions that are created for pick up at our libraries.

We do all this, so there is no barrier to users accessing our monthly newsletter.

I then thought about the process I go through for promoting library events. I create a slide for our website slideshow using PhotoShop Elements and then a page on our website, which incorporates this and all the rest of the information relating to the event. I then add the event to Eventbrite for our online bookings. Then it has to be in our Google Calendar, which we embed in our website as Calendar of Events, followed by another different (and much larger slide) for our digital photo frames. Then I update the SD card for the host branch and send it to them to changeover in their digital photo frame.

This is totally separate of course (but in conjunction with for consistencies sake), to the flyers, posters that our Publicity Officer produces, as well as the articles that are created for our own newsletter, as well as those of our two Councils (as appropriate). Then some are added to Facebook or included in our Library News blog as well. And again that is not taking into account, all the organisation of such events in the first place, as well as the running of and after event follow-up.

Why do we do all this? Because we want to use every means possible (and ethical) to promote events to users that may be of interest to them.

We have quite a busy schedule of one-off events, besides our regular events, so it ends up that we spend a lot of time doing this.

I’m not complaining though, I really enjoy the whole process, particularly creating the event slides – I think I may be a bit of a closet graphic artist (and a very late-starter).

And this is just one part of what libraries do to make things easier for our users. Its a lot of hard work, but it is worth it.

So it got me wondering what other lengths we go to, to make things easier for our users.  I would love to hear your stories.

Forty-seven enthusiastic library staff attended, from a wide range of public libraries from across Victoria. After a quick introduction and some guidelines, people put down their topics of interest on presentation paper. Astoundingly, after a big of juggling with the program for the day, we managed to find a place in the schedule for all 15 topics – with three concurrent sessions over 5 time periods.

As organiser, I tended to float around the different sessions, putting in my two cents worth and picking up gems of wisdom from the amazing people who work with ICT and the Internet in libraries.

You can see our final program at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tang02/7009523295/

In the first concurrent session, the Library Design for Tech sessions discussed new building design and the things we hope to try and plan for the future (difficult when we don’t know what they will be) ,as well modifying our existing buildings for things that weren’t even imagined when they were first built. Thinking revolutionary challenged us to think outside the box. To leave aside our preconceived ideas of everything and to consider ideas that we wouldn’t normally associate with libraries. Staff training explored how we keep our staff up-to-date with new technologies and more.

In the second concurrent session the Mobile web design and apps session discovered that there are some apps already around suitable for our public libraries that we didn’t already know about. Lending e-readers and iPads discovered what Geelong is doing with their program and explored issues around this and Internet speed/NBN discussed what type of speeds should be considered standard and just what we will be wanting and able to do once we have the NBN in our libraries and our neighbourhoods.

A lunch break, where most of the attendees ate and then stuck around and networked and then it was back into the program.

The third concurrent session explored what we would like in a Digital Media Lab – everything from creative software suites, to tech staff and 3D printers.  Responsive web design talked a bit about options for making our library websites the way we want, from choosing the platform to getting in with Council’s IT on choosing same. RFID Devices and Returns was the largest session by far and the queries of those who are planning to or embarking on the RFID path, were well-answered by those who have been there and done that.

We then all came together for our next session, which was supposed to be two guest speakers, but which fell through. Taking the idea from Library Camp Oz, we ended up with a bunch of wonderful volunteers, who each gave 2 minute lightning talks on innovative things that were happening at their library. I thought this ended up being one of the highlights of the day!

The topics covered were: lending iPads, using Pinterest in the library, iPad program for toddlers, automated suggestion for purchase system, next phase Learning 2.0 program for staff, library apps, touch screens for kids, Yammer group for Library IT communication and more……

The fourth concurrent session explored the IT Department and Vendor relationships – how to improve them and get the best out of them for the library, eBooks which are on everyone’s agenda for this year and Statistics and how we can get some useful data from those resources we use that don’t give it to us.

The final concurrent session expanded on iPads as tools, using Tech for local history and I finally sat down for an entire session, which was on Social integration. In Social integration, we discussed how to amalgamate our web presences, how to get more users to those same presences, using tricks and tools that are readily available, but not necessarily well known.

So finally, what did I learn as an organiser of the event.  I learned that:

• the day truly does belong to those who attend. We had great feedback and from that alone, I would like to run another unconference. Not everyone had been to an unconference before, but almost all of the 47 attendees so it was perfect for IT and libraries.  
• that you can’t run it alone. I had great organisation skill and arrangements from Elisabeth Jackson at PLVN, who took all the bookings, handled all the payments and organised all the food.
• that you can’t run it alone, part 2. The PLVN ICT Committee, which was responsible for this event, not only were invaluable in the organisation of the day, but also in convening concurrent sessions and sharing their expertise and in stepping up and giving lightning talks with virtually no notice.
• that you can learn a lot from others doing the same thing – so thanks to Yarra Plenty Regional Libraries and Library Camp Australia who both gave me wonderful examples of library unconferences to learn from.
• that you can either organise or attend, but can’t really do both to any level of satisfaction – I was really only able to attend the lightning talks (where I was time keeper) and the last concurrent session, as I was too busy organising and then keeping an eye on the sessions the rest of the day.  Still, it was absolutely worth it.  Even with only being able to attend those few sessions and picking up bits and pieces as I checked, I still got a lot out of the day, as an attendee as well as an organiser.

If you haven’t attended an unconference, then you must add it to your list of things to do. And if you ever get the chance to organise one, do it – its a fantastic experience all of its own.

You know you are a 21st century public librarian when:

• you get excited about getting a real life reference question
• you lend more DVDs than books
• you hand out more keys to the toilet than answers
• you exercise your IT skills more than your reference skills
• you do more HTML than cataloguing
• you book more Wifi sessions than desktop Internet sessions
• your professional development works mainly through Twitter
• when answering a reference questions, you head to the Internet
• your copier is used for printing from the Internet and virtually never for copying from books
• you have nothing to do when the Internet goes down
• your touch typing skill is the best thing you learned at school
• your phone is used for music and the Internet, not so much for phone calls
• you get more requests for staplers than reading recommendations
• you are extremely familiar with the reset buttons on computers
• some library users protest a noisy library more than you do (they need shushing classes)
• you mention a character from the 20th century and the kids say ‘who?’ (in my case it was Charlie Chaplin)
• you still love your job, even through all the decades of change!

Would love to hear what else has changed for your sector in librarianship.

Kathryn tagged me to answer the following questions using my handwriting:

1. What is your name
2. Blog URL
3. Write: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
4. Favourite quote
5. Favorite song (at the moment)
6. Favorite band/singers (at the moment)
7. Say anything you want
8. Tag 3-5 bloggers

And as my Word Press install is misbehaving and so it doesn’t take a lifetime, you will have to go and checkout my handwriting example at Flickr – at http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7209/6809238460_1400545ef5_o.jpg

I’ll get it fixed eventually.  :(

BTW, I tag Mal Booth, Paul Hagon and Judy O’Connell!

 1st session – Jason Griffey – GADGETS

 165,000 attended the new consumer electronics show in Las Vegas in January. One of the large company booths at this is more than ½ the size of the exhibition space at ALA. Awesome that librarians are attending these conventions.

One laptop per child – equivalent XO tablet – runs Sugar Linux or Android – supposed to cost under $100. Sugar is designed to show you how to program as you use it. Designed to be used in disadvantaged areas, so has a hand crank, solar power connection and much more. Uses mesh networking.

Parrot AR Drone, which includes a video camera. Low battery power (about 15 mins), but battery power is improving. Expensive versions have GPS and are programmable, have sensors which do obstacle avoidance. The military ones can have recharge themselves by attaching to powerlines.

Lytro digital camera – $300. No controls. Lens looks like a flies eye – lots of facets. A picture takes multiple everything all at once. The computer does all the work afterwards. You can’t be a bad photographer with this camera. (plenoptic lens). People have used these to create video – but takes a hugh amount of computing power to do this. Makes imaging of pages easier.

 Nest smart thermostat. Created by an ex-Apple engineer. Whole front is touch screen and dial is controller. The aim is to never have to use them. Sensors pick up when there is people in the house. You adjust for the first few days and then it learns. Has wifi, so can control it from elsewhere.

Local studies

NZ has Keta. Want to get people to create their own data. Partnerships need to be developed to ensure the library is not alone in creating and curating it.

 How do we scrape the information that is already out there. Needs to have geocoding, hash tags and tags etc. Storify does it well, but you need to manually create. Pinterest is also being used for local studies – Smithsonian. Need to also accept that these tools may not be permanent, so we need to have it safe elsewhere. ABC Open is doing some great stuff and will do free staff training.

Libraries can do great leadership in using tagging, so content is at least findable. Part of digital literacy skills. But also about leaving things open so that other people can tag.

Create an exhibition, to demonstrate the potential to users. It gives them a framework and an inspiration. LibraryHack was good in that it had an ideas competition so that people who didn’t have the skills could participate.

Also important to highlight the different groups within the community. What are the different ways we can be collecting the stories.

We are all interested in simple permissions process – form. Just using ‘good enough’ technology. You don’t worry about lighting, sounds etc.

Cowbird – online tool for storytelling.

Today is tomorrow’s history. We need to keep that in mind.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EB9eRqEE6A_h5Vkmp29-iSwAdQbK_YCHY9BTtNk4Cxo/

Sydney public library creates a Flickr group for local festivals and collects photos from it – then sometimes gets permission to re-use.

New content should be released under Creative Commons licences. Also need to say when things are out of copyright and can be re-used.

NZ Public libraries – looked at what kids are doing at school and then engaging them with the library on local history connections. They then ran sessions on creating oral histories – aimed at connecting with the school work requirements – from a human point of view.

Australian National curriculum bringing about opportunities for libraries to engage with their local schools.

Library Camp 2012 Lightning Talks

 Ben – Embedded metadata in digital objects.

 What are libraries and museums doing? Not much. Librarians are committed to their end users and embedded metadata is an end user benefit. We are obsessed with our catalogue, but don’t add metadata to our digital objects. There is a whole stuff attached to the image when it is online, but need to make it downloadable with the object. Yes, its difficult and extremely challenging, but it is possible and it is invaluable.

http://regex.info/exif.cgi – tells you what metadata is in an image online.

Julia – Shameless self promotion.

 Don’t talk about ourselves enough in a positive light. Doing so brings you to amazing places. The thing to remember is to use your strengths – particularly make use of your PLN. Don’t hesitate, go for it, you never know what you will get out of it. Use your community and your interests. Find out more about what you want and then tweet, blog or write an article about it. You are worth the time and effort to do so. Above all, remember it is all up to you.

 Leonie – Money

 Public libraries often have great project ideas, bur not the money to do it. She won the Barrett Reid scholarship for studying young people spaces. Its worth putting in proposals to do a study tours, education courses or programs within your library. Great for PD. Also Churchill Scholarships, ALIA grants and awards, as well as grant applications. Your networks will help you to do the applications.

Amy – Amanda Palmer

 Knew Neil Gaiman was going to be in town, so emailed him and asked if he could come to the library. He said yes. Amanda Palmer emailed them to ask if she could perform at their library (they have a grand piano). Both artists blogged and posted etc about it and they were crammed to the rafters. The lesson – Ask. Its OK to try and fail. Social media was huge, particularly as they asked the artists only tweeted about the event just before it happened. It also helped to improve their social media followings, as those they promoted, promoted them back.

Sara – supporting education in combating social disadvantage.

Digital literacy is going to be big for libraries. To be digitally literate you have to have comprehension literacy and reading skills. Smith Family supports disadvantaged children in their education and a number of components in helping children to help each other improve their reading.

Jennifer – 3D printing

MakerBot 3D printing. You feed plastic through the top and layer by layer it makes up a shape, using glue guns. You can find plans on the web or make your own. You can make just about anything that can be made in plastic. Limit to 10x10x10 centimetres, although you can print in parts. You can also print in multiple colours. Built by engineers. Public libraries can have a role in this. Can get a demo at her library.

Carolyn – Innovation

Tom Peters has a series of videos on innovation on YouTube. Innovation is risky, but risk is not bad. Quite often it is good. It should not be avoided. You should identify it and then work out how to manage it. Innovation can be hard to recognise – its not always gadgets. The companies that we think of as innovative, don’t talk about being innovative. Their goals are focused and innovation is part of the toolset that helps them to achieve that. Innovation shouldn’t be a goal.

You can also check out summary notes on the Library Camp Oz blog (http://libcampoz12.blogspot.com.au/) and tweets on the Library Camp Oz Twitter feed (http://twitter.com/#!/LibCampOz).

The Internet did not kill print, TV killed it ……. in 1940. The Internet will save us from television. More time is spent on the Internet now, than the total amount of media consumption in 1940.

14 to 55 billion pages indexed by Google in 2 years. There is no keeping up with the growth. 

Web culture understands that its out there somewhere for free. It doesn’t care about legal and the only thing stopping people from getting it is the time taken to find it. What is being sold online is not access, its convenience.

1985 born,  its normal, ordinary and natural. 1965 its exciting, new, revolutionary. Before 1965 it against the natural order.

Older people are using it because its the only way of communicating with their grandchildren. Younger users are using the Internet in a completely different way – finding a document is an exercise in probability – they search for words that they will appear on the site they are looking for.

Memetics – memes can not be created on purpose, they have to grow organically. There is a lot out there and no one predicted them. egs Ryan Gosling and Cats 2011. Some memes are changing the world and they are global. A meme has a vector and a host, it is decoded into a host mind and then spread further.

Media is meant to be remixed – not a view held by intellectual property. Doesn’t stop it from being a problematic part of our society. SOPA was a bad attempt at trying to solve these problems.

When you download a copy of something from the web, you are taking a rubbing. You haven’t stolen it, remove it, its still there.

When you share a pattern, you don’t know what is going to happen to it. You can’t control it after you post. If you don’t want anything to happen to it, don’t post it.

Unauthorised duplication is not theft, it is just what it is. Sharing is not piracy. Its like saying eavesdropping is equivalent to armed robbery.

Once you purchased a container, you could do anything with it. Then late in 20thC, licences were brought in to bypass copyright. You can’t steal it if the person still has it after you take a copy.

Some information is valuable. There is a key economic fact – that the Internet does not break the law of supply & demand. If supply is high but demand is low, the price is low and vice versa.  The installation of a paywall, will drive your legitimate customers away. 

To make money, make things available at a decent price, with ease. Grow a big audience by giving things away then sell experiences, such as concerts, clothing etc. eg. Cory Doctorow has rights to ebooks without DRM – but even more money is being made on sales of hard copies. Jonathan Coulton – selling CDs, T-shirts and concert tickets, but his music is free.

Another business model is advertising. Its not new – its been with us on newspapers, television, radio etc. The cost of a newspaper does not pay for its production. Advertising created the free media. Is it such a bad thing to have ad-sponsored e-books?

Ebooks are artificially priced at the moment. Some publishers are testing out lower pricing to engage the impulse buyer and making a lot of money as a result. The bubble will burst soon and it things will change quickly.

Open Educational Resource movement is also going to change things. They are proud of the work they are doing at university, so they are pushing to release it publicly.

In this world, where content is released for free, how do artists and musicians make money? They don’t now. Sites like Kickstarter make the impossible possible. You may be paying for something virtual, but you are getting something physical in return.

Doing it right on the web means doing it DRM free.

 Bits have no value.

So, what’s left for libraries? Our secret weapon is sharing. Unless there is a bottomless pile of it. Sharing implies scarcity, which doesn’t apply to media. Lending collections such as telescopes etc. are a niche that libraries can tap into. Access to equipment and objects that they can’t get any other way.

How can we do things that have value for our community, when the things that we have done, no longer have value. It means being local. In the 21st century, we are taking our community to the world. We also need to produce content that others won’t and bring that to the world. This content will not exist unless we create it.

We need to give experiences that they can’t get anywhere else.  AADL has had a film-making workshop and an annual Lego creation event. They help attendees achieve and then get images on it on the web – not taking away the rights at any stage.

The library is where you spend your social capital usually. However, now when we run these types of events, it is somewhere you can earn social capital.

What would the library look alike when we spend half as much on our experiences, as we do on our collections. Things we can buy is going to decrease.

Had a tagging competition which ended up contributing 200,000 tags over the summer. they made it an open-ended game. Got asked, does the summer reading game end? So as it did, they launched two new continual games, which continue the game and the tagging process. In these games, there is no purpose to the earning of points, as they can’t spend them – but still they come and earn points. They use the catalogue and the web to solve these.

The cloud is not to be trusted. The library can be trusted and we can host, where the cloud disappears. We can be the place.

Libraries: we share stuff – stuff you want, you need, you made and you can stuff here.

Secret mission: fight for the user. Tell them what they can do with the media they download – they should be aware of their rights – fair use etc.

SLV and Department of Childhood Learning had an agreement to deliver 25 unified projects over 2010-11 financial year.

SLV was involved in this project to extend its reach. They were already good at information management, but project management externally was a new area for them. They had past collaborations and had good relationships with external agencies and they are in the learning business. They have a strong focus on preofessional development and research is a major part of their business.

How do they take their information management skills outside the library? Took the same principles of right information with the right people at the right time. This project met all these requirements.

They set up a Ning page to faciliate collaboration and utilised other people networks to get the assistance needed, when it was required. SLV faciliated a range of groups in getting them resourced and able to get their projects completed in the set time. It was a weekly update and prompt. They also provided a lot of professional development, which was totally funded.

Essentially what they built was a library of digital education resources.

 Had to determine what digital content needed to look like for the kids. the projects are housed in the FUSE repository. It incorporates 27,000 digital resources, is content and quality assured, is searchable by teachers and students.

FUSE provided Web 2.0 functionality, integrated active collaboration for students, was linked to VELS and open-ended.

Sample projects: Act Wild (Zoos Victoria) -information and events, but also a range of activities that can be undertaken offline – making a difference on an issue. Also has an iPhone app. Also has a blog where the kids can ask questions of library staff.

Travelbugs (Asian Education Foundation) – information about Asian countries, through visiting countries, go on to blogs, ask questions and more. It is still being used in the Sister School program.

Vidfest (SYN Media) – information about how to host a film festival at their school, has teacher support and resources, guidelines for filmmakers and hosting space for uploaded films.

Virtual History Centre (History Teachers Association) – kids create an avatar and enter a virtual world to do a tour of the Quarantine Station, both the virtual museum and a virtual copy of the station. Includes in world activities and teacher resources.

They work done has created resources that will truly support the work of the teacher and the learning of students.

Monash University Libraries has 6 libraries in Australia and 2 overseas, with 260+ FTE staff, including casuals. They work in partnerships with faculties and other areas of the university. They offer increasingly interactive and engaging resources, services, tools and spaces.

Program was founded on both the unversity’s and the library’s Digital Education strategies, which has a blended learning approach.

The library’s strategy is underpinned by a research approach, which consists of four areas – methods and approaches to development of self, develop staff capability, identifying content and exploration of tools and learning environments.

Capability: training, providing tools and standards, consultation.

The aims of the course were toe develop the knowledge and skills of Library staff to create e-learning tutorials using Adobe Captivate and to create several useful online tutorials (some of which are created by staff).

Course was run in Moodle, using a constructivist learning approach and involved 12 task based activities and 3 workshops, with real life outcomes which matched up to important milestones and was a blended learning course. Most took place online, but also involved face to face.

Mostly doing stuff, but also evaluation. Involved higher order thinking from creation to assessment. Used multiple methods and design experiments for the learning experience, with the emphasis on qualitative feedback and tasks artifacts.

There were 12 course participants, 2 expert reviewers and 1 participant observer.

Course was developed using mindmapping, then was storyboarded, from which it was developed.

Course commenced in June 2011 and was designed to run for two months, but ran to 6 months due to work commitments. Three projects were completed.

Evaluation determined that the course was effective as they all produced effective e-learning resources, with minimal technical expertise. Participants gave a good rating, but there were areas to improve, including improving clarity, reduced workload, software practice, negotiating time to complete tasks.

Next steps: consider next and ongoing interactions, improve submission process and documentation, confirm staff development process and time allocation, improve evaluation, increase collaboration, include staged reporting and enhance the staff e-learning development process.

Playing at professional development? – Ellen Forsyth

How much do you play how much do you work.

92% of Australian homes have electronic games devices. 59% play for an about an hour a day. (only 3% for five hours or more).

Ellen joined up to World of Warcraft a few years ago and is now involved in training in the library in that space. The library is in a public space, but the interaction between participants is restricted to the particular guild. Transcripts are saved to a wiki. Ellen has been running these professional development talks in this space for 12 months.

Even though presenters kept presenting and people kept attending, it was still hard to know whether it was working. She went back to the participants to find out how it went.

Speakers are speed typists. Questions from attendees are best as YELLED out. And it is up to the speaker to acknowledge and respond.

Talks have been about using games in the library, reflections on play – pedagogy and World of Warcraft, WOW in schools, how children learn from computer games.

Presenter feedback – thought it was good, but they have to be a fast typist and fast reader. All presenters were game players, but not all had been WOW players, but they adapted well. It was more relaxing and they enjoyed it more. It also involved trust – on the Internet, no-one knows you’re a dog. They found it easier to engage with the attendees.

Results are skewed because it only involved participants. They came from the US and Australia – from ages 20 to 50 and from across library sectors  etc. You could participate even if you couldn’t play. They came because they thought it was the right environment in which to learn about this. The cost entry was low, allowing them to tap into international knowledge for the cost of a WOW subscription. Transcripts were useful for picking up on things they missed.

Series of talks is just the start of exploring the use of games into libraries and for players to be involved in professional development in the games environment. Implications for bringing in reluctant potential participants are still being explored.

Received the VALA Travel Scholarship to see how QR codes were being used in libraries, their implementation, reception from users and staff, further ideas etc.

QR codes are 2 dimensional barcode when scanned by a mobile device, you get linked to the resource the creator intended. Could be website, email address, phone number, coordinates on a map. You need a mobile device, with a camera, an Internet connection and QR code reader (an app) to make use of QR codes.

Being used a lot in advertising, real estate signs etc.

How they can benefit libraries:

• act as a bridge between the physical and the digital

• make access to information and resource easier

Providing information at the point of need:

• video guide on how to use the print management system

• a map of the library layout

• library audio tours

Catalogue records, with links to specific location information

QR codes within the collection, to link to online resources – particularly to the mobile version of them.

Social media – can communicate your library presences.

Contact the library and research help – particularly SMS reference services.

Other non-library uses included:

• videos by curators talking more about the art work being viewed

• Powerhouse Museum has built an app which the QR code refers to when scanned – each specific piece links to a specific page

Positives:

• Cheap and relatively easy to implement – time is in the staff and sign creation – also have good tracking

• Marketing appeal – makes the library look tech savvy

Negatives:

• Device can’t read the code – too big or too small or incorrect lighting

• Used the wrong way

• People don’t know what they are or how to use them

• Devices need a QR code reader which means downloading an app….

The more content your destination has, the more complicated the QR code, which loses pixilation in resizing. If that is the case, use a URL shortener first.

So are they really all that good?

• They are worth exploring as a useful technology, especially within the broader context of the move to mobile technologies

• one tool among many

• could complement rather than compete with other technologies

Awareness of the codes is high amongst young people, even if they don’t know what they are called.

QR codes could burst on the scene, but if they are used in the wrong way, they may disappear. (bit like Brendan Fraser as an actor).

Hacking the nation: Libraryhack and community-created apps – Margaret Warren and Richard Hayward

LibraryHack was created to foster re-use library data – a direct result of the NSLA Re-imagining libraries vision. QSL was responsible for Project 5 – community created content. It aims to make real the ability to help people to find, remix and create new content. Library hack was in four parts.

        1. Release of library data and digital content for re-use.

Data was to be made available on data.gov.au, so to ensure the data was discoverable where other public data was available and to add a presence for cultural data. All ten participating libraries placed their data in this central location. Fifty-three datasets were added, primarily images, but also search transaction logs, music and art. Data was able to be licensed for re- use, using Creative Commons. Copyright is an important consideration. Discovered that having geo-spatial data included, made the data more popular and re-usable and that most library formats are not re-user friendly. If we want to encourage more photo mash-ups, we need to make high resolution images publicly available.

Interestingly, Ancestry has taken on the public data and made good use of it.

2. Ideas competition

Discovering the sorts of things that people would be interested in

3. Hack days

Days for people interested in working with the data, to come and talk to the content specialists and to find out more about the datasets.

4. Learning

Offered a range of learning opportunities, focused on different topics, including animation and more on how to mash-up this data. Videos are still available at QUT for anyone who is interested.

Received 168 entries for the competition, as well as people creating new apps that were never entered into the competition.

Judging criteria: use of data/digital content, originality, quality, usefulness. Judging panel came from NSLA libraries.

Ideas category winner – Discovery by Diana Iles – included maps, images, manuscripts and map overlay integration. It delivered a visual message, but can be interactive when properly encoded with geo-spatial data.

Apps category winner – talking maps by Michael Henderson – walking West End multimedia tour (Brisbane suburb), custom built geographic interface, talkingmaps.com website, can listen to audio and explore images on the walk

Photo mashups category: Reflection of Time by Andrew Young – included historical images, with reflection of the artists own original work of a contemporary version of the same scene incorporated into it.

Digital media mashup category – Glorious image viewer by Mark Balandzic – projection of historical images on a variety of rotation lamps.

Collaboration was the key, between hackers and between them and the library. Mostly it was fun.

Also resulted in great staff engagement.

Next: More. Better. Easier. Collaboration.

Harvesting and semantically tagging media releases from political websites using web services – Peter Neish

Why are they interested in media releases?

• Play an important part in political process

• establish a party’s position on an issue at a particular time

• often used in time urgent reference request

• may go back many years (library has database back to 1992)

Number of political media releases released in Victoria has risen from just over 1000 in 1992, to over 6000 in 2009 and 5000 in 2010. The government puts out a lot more media releases than the opposition. The government keeps it own databases of these media releases. If it was online, the library stopped duplicating that work.

Due to the potential loss of this data when a change of government occurs, the decision was made to begin harvesting this data on the go. The aims of the project were to automate the process, combine the different databases together and to examine the possibility of automatically applying tags to media releases using web services.

Part 1 – Automation

• Key was RSS

• Political parties have websites, which had RSS feeds, which were used as a standard input to software.

• Built, in Java, a servlet which polled and returned the data from the political parties website – put the full-text and its associated metadata into the library database. It also produced and saved a pdf version of the media release.

It works, having harvested over 11000 media releases since July 2010, freeing up 2 days of staff time per week. Problems include having non-standard content in feeds (eg. dates), which they addressed with Yahoo Pipes and website’s changing their structure or CMS.

Part 2 – Semantic tagging

Manual tagging was no longer viable. After examining many options, went with Open Calais – from Thomson Reuters. Although business focused, it matched up with the type of data they had, gave a good number of tags (around 20), minimal false matches, good documentation sand community and generous limits on API calls. Unfortunately, their algorithm is a closely kept secret and not as much development is happening. Check out an example at http://viewer.opencalais.com/.

User Interface – did some useful user testing which helped inform the creation of the interface.

Review – of tagging – about 85% were correct – 4% were incorrect, 6% repeated and 5% redundant. One of the things they always got wrong was Victoria which it placed in the Seychelles – very frustrating.

Linked Data – get the info back in JSON and RDF. It links to its own ontology – which means that limited classes for government.

Media releases are now available as they are released – no backlog. Data is enriched by tagging and in future will link to other databases in the Linked Data ecosystem.

Guinness Archive framework– digitisations, dissemination of information, types of users and their needs, accessibility to information, intellectual property, cataloguing prioritisation and copyright.

Background: was founded on New Year’s Eve 1759, by a young brewer signed a 9000 year lease. It is brewed in 50 countries worldwide and enjoyed in over 150 countries world wide. It uses its heritage to promote itself. Guinness has a well-resourced archive which is well used in marketing. Its the only corporate archive open to the public in Ireland. They have barley grains from Tutankhamen’s tomb.

The interior of the Storehouse is in the shape of a glass of Guinness and the facility attracts 1 million visitors each year. It is the fourth largest brand experience in the world. The Storehouse is a brand experience, not just a heritage experience.

Advertising digitisation project:

Involved materials back to 1929 and covered both print and multimedia materials. The items were digitised for mainly marketing, but a side benefit was archiving and preservation. The project can be queried and marketing teams have created new products from the resulting inspiration. $18 million pounds has been made from products created with inspiration from the archive – 30% of new products, began with an idea from the archive.

Genealogy digitisation project:

Guinness holds 20,000 employee records from the 1880s to 2000s. They are very rich in detail and help fill the gaps resulting from the loss of national records during the Irish Civil War. Often had generation of families working in the brewery. Due to the growth in interest in genealogy, they were receiving an increasing number of requests.”Brewery life – trace your Guinness roots”. In house terminals were made available to researchers to access and more recently the records have been made available online.

Data protection:

The records have some information that could have some personal information. They can not publish any records for people still living, or where they don’t know their time of death and they also do not publish rates of pay or medical information.

Archive:

The Storehouse is no longer the only place for this data. The aim however, is that a visit to the centre is the start of a brand experience, not just a one off visit. At the Storehouse, they have a digital project where they have terminals to Facebook or Tweet about their experience of it. Each user gets a unique token with an RFID tag, which helps to enhance the user experience. The visitor provides their contact details and in return they receive a much richer experience. Guinness gets visitor data and the user gets a Guinness visitor only wallpaper which they can use as social currency with their friends – a value exchange.

Website:

25% of visitors attend the website before they come to the Storehouse and 10% book online. To help increase this latter, they provide additional information to help the visitor make the best choices about their visit. They also have a booking form for genealogical research access.

Guinness Stories:

To mark the 250^th anniversary of Guinness and in conjunction with the Irish Government, they resourced residents who had lived on the doorstep of the brewery, to record their stories of their experiences with the brand. The users were able to record and edit it themselves, which considering their average age was in the 70s is quite remarkable.

Visitors to the website are encouraged to add their own stories which then complement the companies own records.

Audio guides are provided free of charge to visitors at the Storehouse, but with the growth of mobile technologies they have now launched a mobile app for iOS, Android and Blackberry in five languages. It provides users with pre-visit, during visit and post-visit content. It also allows them to share their own experiences. The likelihood that visitors will recommend the Storehouse to family and friends is high – making the app sticky helps that process, when visitors go home and share the app, particularly the 360 degree view of the Dublin skyline from the top floor gallery. In future, they will include an augmented reality layer on that view.

Smart Library:

Guinness has local marketing teams in regional areas besides the main team in Dublin. They have used a wide range of tools available for these marketing teams, regardless of their location. Smart Library is available to all marketers or those doing marketing projects on behalf of Guinness. They have uploaded key iconic marketing items and can download low resolution copies for reference. When a high resolution copy is required, they must request it from the archive – thereby ensuring branch protection. All records are well resource with metadata. All marketing campaigns are also uploaded to Smart Library, with metadata, copyright, permissions and more, to enable other marketing teams to reuse or remix the campaign for their own markets.

Guinness 250 Website:

The focus was year long and created a celebration of the past and of the future, built on the foundation of the past. It was aimed at supporting media requests for this important event. As there was no complete published history, the website became a default one, with a wide range of information on a great range of topics about the heritage and development of the organisation. As a result, they were able to digitise a great number of images for inclusion on it. It was password protected and media were given access on confirmation of their credentials. It included both low and high resolution images which could be re-used. Post analysis, they discovered that 2 billion requests had been fulfilled by the site.

Emarketing and Branding:

This form of marketing, is much more immediate and engaging and is requiring a shift in thinking by marketing teams. Dominoes streamed feedback from their customers on billboards in Times Square, both good and bad. They use Facebook to tell stories or did you know, and tell your stories, most often using imaging, to engage with fans of the page. Archive content is being used to spark these entries.

Have a clearly defined mission statement – you have a brand. What is your unique selling point and what are you doing to promote it?

With the decrease in available resources, you need to be project specific, outlining the items which add real value back to the organisation and/or to yours users, so that you can justify the required expenditure.

You need to show the value back to your organisation, using metrics.

Should not operate in silos, but seek collaboration with partners, especially in GLAM sector.

And most of all, have fun with it!