Digital Collections Users' Group Meeting: January 18, 2012

Members present: Ellen Corrigan (Eastern Illinois University), Chris Day (School of the Art Institute of Chicago), Eben English (Loyola University Chicago), Ginger Frere (Newberry Library), Peter Hepburn (University of Illinois at Chicago), Meg Miner (Illinois Wesleyan University), Laurie Sauer (Chair, Knox College)

Members absent: Julia Thompson (Western Illinois University), David Levinson (Lake Forest College)

CARLI Staff Liaisons present: Jessican Gibson and Amy Maroso

Confirmed Hepburn as minutes taker.

Minutes from the December meeting were approved with corrections. Sauer inquired whether the November minutes had been posted. It was confirmed that all minutes through the end of 2011 have been posted to the CARLI site.

Subcommittee reports

1. Communication & Outeach (English) - The subcommittee did not meet in December. English reported that the Image of the Week and the Twitter feed are proceeding as expected. The subcommittee will meet following today’s DCUG meeting.

2. Documentation & Standards (English) - The subcommittee met on January 11. Its structure has changed: until it is reconstituted, there will be no chair. The image and text guidelines documents have undergone final revisions based on comments from the last DCUG meeting, and the subcommittee has approved those changes. Maroso will post the revised versions soon. The subcommittee will next work on customization guidelines and the guide for digitizing artifacts, as in 3D objects. It is currently gathering resources from around the web. Sauer asked whether the resources being gathered would be useful to go into the wiki, or should they be kept separate for now? English replied that it would be good for the links to go on the wiki as well.

3. Usability (Day) – The subcommittee continues looking at projects underway, including Google Analytics, and is deciding what reports to share. Gibson has run quarterly reports for the subcommittee, and Day expects to have some reports to share with DCUG by the next meeting. They plan to focus on the set of topics used on the main CARLI collections page since Analytics suggest that these are heavily clicked-on links.

4. Digital Preservation (Sauer) - The subcommittee met on January 9. It discussed planning for the April 10 forum. The event appears to be coming together smoothly. The subcommittee also agreed to ask Chris Prom from UIUC to do a 1-hour webinar on preservation of e-mails as this is his area of research. The subcommittee thinks he can approach the topic from a non-technical side, and that this would be good for CARLI members. The date for the webinar is not yet set, but it will come later than the April forum and likely depend on what else has been scheduled. English asked whether the webinar was outside of DCUG’s series. Sauer affirmed that it was, arising from something Prom proposed. Since the topic did not fit into the April 10 forum easily, it was being pursued as a webinar opportunity.

"Anatomy of a Digital Project" series:

1. Sauer remarked that there were 26 sign-ins for the first webinar and that some of those likely included multiple attendees. Corrigan commented that that was the case at her library, for example. Sauer asked whether CARLI asked at registration how many would be sharing a sign-in. Maroso responded no but noted that there is that question in the survey. Gibson said that there isn't 100% participation in the survey, so CARLI cannot get an entirely accurate number. Still, there is some indication of a low end of attendance at least.

2. Digitization for Access and Discovery (Feb. 21 at 2:00 pm) - Sauer asked whether registration has started yet. The CARLI Webmaster group is still working on this.

3. Promoting collections (Wed. Mar 28 at 10:00 am)- Frere does not yet have a description for this but will have this written soon

4. Digital Preservation (April 10, all day, in-person at the I Hotel in Champaign) - This was discussed earlier in the meeting.

5. Grants/funding - Corrigan has consulted with Maroso and Gibson, and is eyeing an early June date. The other DCUG members agreed that would fit the webinar schedule. Corrigan will work out a date with the proposed panel members.

6. Connecting Your Digital Collections to the Curricula at Your Institution - Speaker: Jane Darcovich; Tentative date: Tues. May 15. Hepburn has confirmed the date with Darcovich and will confirm the 2:00 time with her and CARLI. He will work with her on getting a description together.

New Business/Conference Reporting

None.