Digital Collections Users’ Group Meeting: March 20, 2013

Conference Call

Members present: Ellen Corrigan (Eastern Illinois University), Chris Day, Chair (School of the Art Institute of Chicago), Benn Joseph (Northwestern University), Mary Rose (Southern Illinois University Edwardsville), Laurie Sauer (Knox College), Adam Strohm (Newberry Library), Julia Thompson (Western Illinois University)

Members absent: David Levinson (Lake Forest College)

CARLI staff present: Jessica Gibson, Amy Maroso (liaison to DCUG)

Confirmed Corrigan as minutes taker.

Minutes from the February 20 meeting were approved with corrections.

Project Updates

Featured Collections: Strohm and Sauer are developing guidelines for member institutions to implement in a recurring webinar format rather than as a regular monthly feature.  More than presenting collections, the aim is to generate dialogue about challenges and solutions.  The opportunity to present will be open to all member institutions with digital collections.  Other considerations, such as topically-themed collection webinars, are under discussion.  Rose raised the idea of creating digital exhibits, as she has recently done to complement a physical exhibit of rare books on feminism at SIUE.

Social Media Training: Day and Thompson continue to explore the potential use of social media sites (Flickr, Pinterest, and Tumblr) by individual institutions to promote their digital collections.  Thompson is drafting instructions for using Tumblr.  Maroso advised the project team to start planning any anticipated webinars on this topic, ideally to be held before the July 1 committee change.

Google Analytics: Day reported changes to the traffic and keyword reports based on feedback from the group.  Summary reports will interpret and provide context for significant results, noting new trends; the number of keyword phrases and extent of descriptive analysis will vary based on quarterly results.  Wikipedia and Facebook will continue to be excluded as traffic sources, as will promotional resources created by member institutions.  Summaries and raw data in tabular form are posted on the CARLI site.

Quarter 1 reports will be posted soon and announced via email lists, Twitter, and the CARLI blog.  The project team will revise instructions for producing summary reports on the DCUG wiki.  

Featured Image: Corrigan reported that she was unable to log in to the blog to post this week’s image.  Maroso explained that, due to the CARLI site redesign, featured images will now be added directly to the site as news articles; she will follow up with login information and instructions for the new procedure.

Twitter: Joseph stated that the DCUG Twitter account is being used only to announce Featured Images.  The possibility of consolidating the DCUG stream with the main CARLI account was suggested, but with ongoing changes at CARLI, the continued use of Twitter is uncertain.

Digital Preservation: A new group will be formed after the Library of Congress digital preservation “train-the-trainers” workshop in July.  The deadline for workshop applications was March 15; approximately 22-23 applications were received for 18 seats.  Notifications will be sent out at the end of April.

Other Business

Joseph announced that he is nearing completion of the Digital Archives Specialist Curriculum and Certificate Program offered by the Society of American Archivists.

Rose thanked the group for recommending the NEDCC Digital Directions conference.She has received institutional support to attend the conference in Ann Arbor at the end of July.