Created Content Committee Meeting: November 24, 2015

Conference Call

Members present: Ian Collins (University of Illinois at Chicago), Ellen Corrigan (Eastern Illinois University), Alice Creason (Lewis University), Margaret Heller (Loyola University Chicago), Anne Shelley (Illinois State University), Adam Strohm (Illinois Institute of Technology)

Members Absent: Sarah Prindle (Southern Illinois University Carbondale), Jennifer Wolfe (Newberry Library)

CARLI staff present: Amy Maroso, Elizabeth Clarage

Acceptance of Last Meeting's Minutes

  • The committee accepted the minutes from the November 9 call with revisions.

Ongoing Projects Updates

  • CONTENTdm Collection Homepages
    • Prior to the call, Amy had sent several mockups of possible options for adding an additional link to all collection homepages for browsing the collection. One of the options included omitting the extra link. The committee reviewed the options and agreed that a plain text link reading “Browse all items in the collection” on the left side of the page, just under the header “About this collection” was the best option.
  • Google Analytics Follow-up
    • Margaret and Adam will provide the quarterly Google Analytics reports, employing the new spreadsheet with additional data from Analytics, replacing the old “Keywords Data” report. The Summary of Top Traffic Sources & Keywords reports will be revamped since that data is included in the new spreadsheet and institutions will be able to view and analyze the data as needed.
  • Tumblr Project
    • The committee talked about the Tumblr project and discussed the following items:
    • Images used in the Tumblr project would be limited to those from collections of institutions represented on the Created Content Committee. It was noted that Mary Rose had also granted permission to use images from SIU-Edwardsville.
    • The committee discussed the URL for the project and Margaret noted that carlicollections.tumblr.com was available. Although some reservations were raised over whether that URL best reflects the content, the committee agreed to go with that URL for the live Tumblr.
    • The title of the Tumblr would remain CARLI Digital Collections as it currently reads on the test site.
    • Amy will provide an image of CARLI’s new logo to use as an avatar on the site.
    • Alice asked about the Gmail account being used for the project and whether that was the appropriate account to use. Amy will recommend which Gmail account to use from the three known accounts discussed.
    • The committee recommended making the image a link back to the image in the CONTENTdm collection as a best practice.
    • The committee also recommended adding a signature line to the posts, following the same format as the Featured Image CARLI blog posts, to identify Tumblr post authors.
    • And, the committee recommended writing a sentence or two to provide context for the image, rather than posting just the image alone.
    • The committee liked the idea of staying with a “theme of the week” for post content. Each week’s theme would be chosen by the member responsible for posting that week.
    • The following committee members volunteered to participate as Tumblr post authors: Alice, Adam, Ellen, Ian, Margaret (and Alice added Jen in absentia)
    • Ellen cautioned about scheduling for the Tumblr as many participating the Tumblr project are also writing Featured Image and/or Digitized Book of the Month posts as well.
    • The committee also discussed following other Tumblrs, reblogging and liking posts from other Tumblr sites. Although the committee wants to engage other Tumblr users as part of this project, and market the CARLI Digital Collections Tumblr, members cautioned against creating an expectation of project participants having to log into the site every day, as this could be burdensome.
    • Alice will update the Google Doc with the recommendations made for post content and styling.

Other Items From the Floor

  • Amy asked whether we want to keep the December 22 call on the schedule. Most of the committee members on the call said they would be available that day, so the committee will keep the call on the calendar.

Meeting adjourned around 11:50 a.m.

Next Meeting

The next meeting will be December 22, 2015.