Created Content Committee meeting: October 28, 2014

CONFERENCE CALL

Members present: Howard Carter (Southern Illinois University Carbondale), Ellen Corrigan (Eastern Illinois University), Alice Creason (Lewis University), Paul Go, Chair (Illinois Institute of Technology), Margaret Heller (Loyola University Chicago), Mary Rose (Southern Illinois University Edwardsville), Anne Shelley (Illinois State University), Adam Strohm, (Illinois Institute of Technology)

Members absent: Nicole Finzer (Northwestern University)

CARLI staff present: Amy Maroso (CARLI staff liaison)

1. Confirmed Alice as minutes taker.
2. September 23 minutes approved with corrections.

Discussion of Current Committee Activities

BOOK OF THE MONTH

We discussed Margaret post draft for the digitized yearbook feature. Margaret asked for clarification over whether we should feature yearbooks in CARLI Digital Collections or the Internet Archive. Amy pointed out that some institutions placed their digitized yearbooks in both places, and some even digitized on their own. Amy approved the draft post. Mary brought up the fact that we could focus on any digitized book, not just yearbooks. Then Amy further clarified that, at the last meeting, the committee planned to make the posts seasonal and thematic – Halloween, football season, spring break, etc. Amy will also send out the instructions for posting the digitized book feature.

PODCASTS

An interview with Archivematica is planned for the third podcast. Mary and Paul will send out a draft list of questions to the group.

Podcast four may feature an interview with the portal manager for the Chicago Collections Consortium. This may be a site interview. Adam and Margaret hope to schedule it in November.

use of carli digital collections survey

Alice described the documents and links she had emailed before the call.

Ellen asked about the goal of the survey. Are we looking to measure use and/or how the digital collections are being used at other institutions? Paul confirmed that, yes, that was the original idea/goal.

Adam suggested that it might be beneficial if we started from the end and asked what we want to know as a result of the survey. He also cautioned that we do not want to write a survey that tries to answer everything possible.

Margaret suggested looking at the survey conducted by Dominican grad students in 2009 and revisiting the marketing and sustainability of the collections compared to the data from 5 years ago.

Mary asked if institutions have ways to measure use of the digital collections, and Ellen mentioned the monthly stats generator on the CARLI website. Alice also pointed out that from our initial look at institution websites, many institutions do not link to the digital collections on the library website. One data point we may want to look at then, is if an institution is not using the digital collections, why not?

Ellen brought up the question of classroom use. Are faculty teaching with the collections or using them in instruction? Group members discussed whether that should be the focus of the survey. Amy cautioned that other CARLI committees have done surveys that have not gone anywhere in terms of analysis.

The group discussed possible collaboration opportunities with the Instruction Committee, including a possible forum or workshop with faculty who may be using the digital collections for instruction. Amy suggested breaking the project up over two years—doing the survey this year and discussing possible collaboration with other committees for next year.

Margaret brought up the issue of how to market/promote the digital collections and suggested that would be useful in the survey to find out what people are not doing, in order to find out where the committee needs to go with marketing and promotion. Amy suggested creating a list of marketing best practices and announcing new the publication of new collections in the CARLI newsletter and on the website.

Margaret pointed out that institutions with an archive may be more likely to use primary sources and we may want to focus there. Alice also suggested focusing on institutions that currently link to the digital collections or have content in the digital collections.

Paul suggested some questions for the survey, including: How are the collections being used in instruction? Are collections being used in the classroom? And, how are you obtaining usage statistics? Paul offered to send an email to the group with preliminary questions for comment.

Amy said we will plan on having the call in November and get survey questions ready to go by that meeting so we can launch the survey in early 2015 after the holidays.

Other Business

Metadata Reuse Policy

Amy received a request from China to harvest data from the CARLI Digital Collections. This request prompted a need for a written Metadata Reuse Policy that we might add to the About page [http://collections.carli.illinois.edu/cdm4/about.php]. Amy wrote a draft of a policy and sent to the group, with language borrowed from the University of Surrey. Anne asked if we could add a Creative Commons license to the policy. Paul and Ellen agreed the initial draft looks good. Paul suggested the CC Attribution-Non-Commercial-ShareAlike license as a possible good fit. Amy will write up the draft policy for the committee that can be approved at the next meeting.  The policy will then be forwarded to the CARLI Board for final approval at their December meeting.