Digital Collections Users' Group Meeting: March 21, 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), David Levinson (Lake Forest College), Meg Miner (Illinois Wesleyan University), Laurie Sauer (Chair, Knox College), Julia Thompson (Western Illinois University)

Members absent: Peter Hepburn (University of Illinois at Chicago)

CARLI Staff Liaisons present: Jessican Gibson and Amy Maroso

Confirmed Meg as minutes taker.

Minutes from the February meeting were approved.

Subcommittee reports

  1. Communication & Outeach (Eben) - Eben reported that the subcommittee is working on increasing DCUG's Twitter following by using more tags and also by following the Twitter posts of others. The Featured Image blog posts are ongoing. Additionally, the group compiled a glossary of marketing and promotional techniques on the DCUG Wiki and each member is investigating different parts of it. Ginger offered to provide examples she’s identified in preparation for her upcoming webinar.

    Eben also stated that the first Chicago-area meet-up of digital collection managers took place in late February; approximately 10-12 people attended. They discussed projects and systems they each use with the goal of becoming more aware of and connected with each other. They hope to meet again in April or May. Eben suggested that DCUG volunteer opportunities be mentioned at the next meeting since the annual CARLI call for committee volunteers will be announced soon.

  2. Documentation & Standards (Eben) - Eben reported that the subcommittee reviewed Jessica's draft guide for customizing collection homepages. The goal is to have the draft to DCUG as a whole by the April meeting.

    The group started a wiki page for collecting links to CONTENTdm collections containing 3D objects. The goal is to create a guide for digitizing objects with a focus on processes people can use within CONTENTdm. Other techniques for presenting 3-D objects (possibly via 3-D modeling or videography) outside of a CONTENTdm context may be mentioned in the guide, though the specific technical details of how to accomplish these techniques.

  3. Usability (Chris) – Chris provided members with a draft summary of this team’s analysis of the CARLI Digital Collections' Google Analytics data. The reports, along with file of the raw data, are posted on the DCUG wiki. So far, summary reports have been created for the first quarter of 2011-2012; similar analysis will be done for each successive quarter.

    Discussion about the meaning and usefulness of the Google Analytics raw data followed. A member asked if CARLI institutions could access reports on their own and it was stated that Google Analytics data are only accessible by CARLI staff. DCUG members agreed with the subcommittee’s decision to summarize the data further and then make both the summary and raw data publicly available for CARLI members.

    The Usability Subcommittee is also working on updates to the topical categories assigned to collections in CARLI Digital Collections.

  4. Digital Preservation (Laurie) - Laurie reported that the group has finalized plans for the April 10 forum. There are currently 60 registrants. Jessica reminded DCUG members that they should sign up if they plan to attend so that CARLI can get an accurate count of registrants.

"Anatomy of a Digital Project" series

  1. Digitization for Access and Discovery (held Feb 21): The survey results were distributed to DCUG in advance of the meeting. It was noted that responses were few but generally positive. Members were pleased to hear of interest in digital preservation for a future topic since there is a forum planned on already.
  2. Promoting collections: Ginger stated that all was ready for her webinar on Mar 28 at 10:00 am. She and Chris Day will be presenting.
  3. Grants/funding: Ellen recommends not pursuing this webinar this year—it has been difficult to get speakers and we are nearing the end of the year.
  4. Connecting Your Digital Collections to the Curricula at Your Institution: Scheduled for May 15. Peter was absent and so there was no update on this program at this time.

New Business

Laurie asked when the CARLI Board needs the group's annual report and Jessica responded that they are due May 31. Laurie asked the DCUG subcommittees to summarize their work soon, even if it is work-in-progress, so that by our last phone conference meeting on May 16th we can review and discuss it.

Conference Reporting:

  1. Ellen's presentation at IACRL went well.
  2. Eben reported that the poster summarizing the survey of CARLI libraries doing digitization projects was available only during lunch hour at IACRL, so not much feedback was provided.
  3. Meg will be attending the annual meeting of the Midwest Archives Conference in Grand Rapids. No one from the committee is planning to attend the Midwest CONTENTdm Users' Group meeting in Dublin, Ohio in May.