Digitization 101

In 2014, Delaware became "the first state to follow the latest suggestion from the Uniform Law Commission, a non-profit group that crafts model legislation and lobbies to enact it across all jurisdictions in the United States. Last month the ULC adopted a new legal standard, the Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (UFADAA), which laid out what rights heirs should have over digital content belonging to the deceased..."

The National Conference of State Legislatures keeps track of statutes and citations at the state-level which relate to this. According to the NCSL web site:

Several states have enacted laws addressing access to email, social media accounts, microblogging or other website accounts, or certain electronically stored information, upon a person’s incapacity or death. Nevada law provides for the termination of decedents' social media accounts.

The information on the NCSL web site is up-to-date and includes information on legislative actions in 2016. If this is a topic of interest to you, then check out the site.

Last Friday, I spoke to one of the councils of the Manufacturers Association of Central New York on competitive intelligence.  Since I don't like for a good handout to go to waste, I'm placing it here.  Competitive intelligence is what I did as a corporate librarian and then when I started Hurst Associates, Ltd.  Now that I'm an academic, I like talking with students about this work.  It is not something the initially consider when they think about library science.

I've been in a number of conversations recently about how we (professionals) use social media to promote our ourselves organizations, and attract people to what we and our organizations do.  These conversations became particularly meaningful after hearing Jeff Hemsley discuss his doctoral research. Hemsley's current research looks at information flows in social media networks, with an emphasis on social movements and political events.  He is co-author of the book Going Viral, which explains what virality is, and how it works technologically and socially.

So what do we need to do in terms of promotion?

Talking About Ourselves & Our Work is Necessary - This "talking" can take many forms: articles, presentations, blog posts, tweets, conversations, etc.  In order to be part of a professional community and to have influence in that community, we need to make our knowledge, skills and positions recognized.  I know far too many people that are hesitant to talk about their work or who will downplay what they are doing.  Those two actions are important if we want people to know about us, hire us, use our services, etc.

We often talk about having an "elevator pitch" to use when we meet someone. These days, however, we need to talk to people, that we may not interact with face-to-face.  So while the elevator pitch is important, other methods are becoming more important.  In fact, consider that someone may know you and your organization from those other methods before ever meeting you face-to-face.

The 21st Century Requires Alternate Ways of Engagement - If you're thinking about promoting yourself and your organization using methods that were normal in the 20th century, you are doing a disservice.  Consider this...when was the last time you took someone's business card and acted on it (e.g., emailed them, called them, setup a meeting)?  If you did act on that business card, did you actually have that person's information and the business card really wasn't necessary?  We aren't using the exchange of business cards - and other old school methods - as a way of engaging, in the same ways that we used to.

At the ALISE Annual Conference, I attended a session on altmetrics.  In their presentation, "Altmetrics: An Entrepreneurial Approach to Assessing Impact on Scholarship and Professional Practice", Laurie Bonnici and Heidi Julien mentioned alternative ways that scholars are talking about their research and what that means in terms of impact.  Clearly some social sites are not where people feel comfortable talking about their work, yet these are the places where people can broaden their influence and impact.  For example, talking about your work on Facebook or through Twitter.  By the way, one of their questions was on how impact is measured, and that is a place where research needs to continue. 

Weak Ties Are How We Influence - On the right is a visualization of my LinkedIn network. My network is dominated by library and information professionals.  When I talk to them, I'm "preaching to the choir" (in other words, talking to people that generally have the same point of view as me). 

In his presentation, Hemsley pointed to the power of weak connections in our networks as being important to how we and our organizations have impact. In this visualization, you can see people that are connectors between two networks.  You can also spot people that are in my network, but unconnected to everyone else.  For me, these are people who are weak connections, who might be a bridge between my network and theirs, which are likely not library-focused. 

Let's Create New Practices - So how to do change your professional engagement?  How do you capitalize on weak ties?  How do you have more influence?  Let me tell you what I'm doing and what I'm experimenting with, in hopes that there is something here that you can use.

• I promote on my blog and web site the conferences I'm attending and the presentations that I'm giving.  The conferences help you understand how I define my community of practice and the presentations tell you what knowledge I want to share.
• I have maintained a practice of using my blog to talk about what I'm learning.  I don't limit the "what" to just the focus of this blog, rather - for example - I talk about many of the conference sessions that I attend.  Sharing information...sharing what we're learning...is a powerful action and it draws people towards us.
• Besides blog posts, I also use Twitter to tweet what I'm learning.  If I'm at a conference, I'll tweet out information from conference sessions.  I've had a number of people tell me that they find my conference tweets to be informative.  For me, I've met people at conferences because of my tweets, so those tweets have created new professional connections.  (If you follow me on Twitter and wonder how I can type so quickly, while at a conference, consider that I'm using Twitter as the way I'm taking notes.)  
• I use Twitter apps to schedule tweets.  This allows me to do things like promote upcoming events.  I don't schedule a high number of tweets and I don't do it all the time.  However, it has been a useful tool for me because it allows me to get my thoughts together and then have those tweets appear when I think they will be more readily received.
• While I take photos at events, some colleagues promote themselves, their organizations and what they are learning through their photos. We don't think about photos has being useful for professional engagement, but truly they are.
• I post presentation to SlideShare.  If you've given a presentation, placing it on SlideShare allows it to have more reach.  Be sure to include a description and to give it tags (use tags that related to how someone might look for this information).  I frequently place presentations in SlideShare before an event and that does not negatively impact my audience.  (And rather than giving handouts, I point people to SlideShare.)
• I'm experimenting with Tumblr.  I've come late to Tumblr and am still learning how to engage with people there.  Tumblr is more visual and more casual, yet it is where people are talking about important professional issues.
• I'm trying to figure out how to connect with "weak ties".  According the Hemsley, weak ties across networks that engage with a message are how a message goes viral. Hemsley doesn't yet know the formula for virality, but I suspect that part of the formula can be seen in Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.  How do you do that in 140 characters, through Facebook, or on a research site? Good questions.
• I post information to specific people and groups.  This is placing information in a specific network and it may help the information spread.  If nothing else, it helps to ensure that I'm not always speaking to the same group.
• I'm willing to experiment with new forms of communication and engagement. I do limit how may tools I'm willing to experiment with.  Frequently I let my colleagues and friends experiment first, and then I experiment with the tools that have resonated with them.

Ways of Engagement Will Change - Finally, it is important to note that how we engage with our networks will change, and likely change rapidly.  You cannot sit back and wait for things to settle down, but rather you must begin to engage your network - and your weak ties - now.  And as you learn how to do that, I hope you'll share your lessons learned with me and others.

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Addendum (2/21/2014): Paul Signorelli faciltated a webinar yesterday entitled "Social Media, Library Partnerships, and Collaboration: More Than a Tweet".  I'm pleased that Paul found inspiration in this blog post and was able to pull a few quotes for his presentation!

If you know anyone who is a professional photographer, you need to tell them about this blog post.  Why?  Because the metadata that person has "in" his photos, that could connect the photo to the photographer, is being removed.  According to the Embedded Metadata Manifesto:

...a number of the more popular services strip this embedded information from images when the images are uploaded to the services or processed on their servers.

This created quite a discussion in one of my classes last week! We recognize that this stripping of metadata is affecting all of us, but we know that it is affecting professional photographers even more.  Embedding metadata in a photo is done by the camera and editing software.  Metadata - including information on who took the photo - can be quite helpful when searching across photos or even demonstrating ownership.  Strip that information out of the photo and that photo could have been taken by anyone at any time.

Why would a social media site remove the metadata?  My guess is it is part of the file resizing that occurs, since sites like Facebook really don't want to be storing large files.  They would prefer to resize the files to something more manageable.  That does mean that the file you have on Facebook is really not the same as the photo that you took.

The report does include information on social media sites that do not strip out the metadata.  I'm saddened to see that Flickr, which is use heavily, didn't do well in the tests.

This is off-topic for this blog, although some who are not my students, may find it useful.

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In the iSchool, several of us are avid users of Twitter. We use as a way of staying connected to our colleagues, friends (professional and personal), and students.  Since some students are still acclimating to Twitter, this tutorial will help you become more proficient.

What is Twitter?



For many people, Twitter is replacing short email messages.  In addition, some are using it as a way of taking notes and immediately disseminating those notes to others.  You see this happen at numerous conferences and it is definitely one of the ways that I use Twitter.

How many people are using Twitter?  According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 8% of U.S. online adults use Twitter daily (May 2012). People are using it from PCs, laptops and their mobile devices.

How to signup for Twitter -Twitter has a help page on this. 

You are your Twitter name.  Now at conferences, it is not the business card that people want, but your Twitter name.  We might follow someone on Twitter during a conversation as a way of starting what we hope will be a long-term connection. - From Being Social, May 1, 2012

Please use a profile photo.  While the photo can be anything, if it is a photo of you, then people will associate your Twitter name and tweets with a visual of you.  That can be a real benefit!  For example, I've had people introduce themselves to me because they recognize me from my Twitter profile photo.

Twitter allows you to receive email notifications.  I find this annoying and so I receive no email notifications.  You may want to try it for a few days, just so you know what you could be notified about.

You will notice that some people have customized the background of their Twitter page.  This is not necessary.  However, if you get to a point where you want to do it, here are directions.


Who should you follow?  Twitter only works if you are following other people and other people are following you.  You will notice that the number of people an individual is following and the number of people who are following that individual is generally not the same, and that is okay.  You do not have to follow everyone who follows you.  You should only follow those people whose tweets you want to automatically see.

Finding people to follow can seem difficult at first.  The trick is to locate a few people that interest you, then check to see who is following them. You may find among their followers people that you also want to follow.  For example, you may want to look at the people I am following (or who are following me) and see if any are of interest to you.

What should I tweet? Tweet about things that are newsworthy.  That could be an ah-ha moment in class, an unanticipated traffic jam, link to a good article/video/web site, information from an event you are attending, etc.  If someone tweets something that you want your followers to see, yes, do re-tweet it!

Sometimes tweets are actually a conversation between two people.  While these can be done as public tweets, you may also want to consider sending them as direct messages (or DMs). 

By the way, Twitter allows you to protect your tweets, which means that ONLY the people who follow you can see them.  I encourage you to not protect your tweets.  If you want to have an impact, your tweets need to be public.

What shouldn't I tweet?  Do not tweet information that would allow someone to steal your identity or that you do not want misused (e.g., telephone number).  Do not tweet anything that you wouldn't want announcement in the newspaper about you.  It is also wise to not tweet about things like what you are eating or that your heading to lunch, unless it is the best meal ever OR you're heading to lunch with an extraordinary group of individuals.  As many people will tell you, they really don't care the mundane activities in your life.



How to I keep up with all of the tweets?  This is the hard part for people to learn.

First, stay in the moment.  Don't worry about what someone said yesterday.  That was yesterday.  Notice what is being said in Twitter now.

Second, setup Twitter lists. (See help here.)  Once you get above 100 followers or so, you need to create lists in order to organize the tweets that are coming to you.  I have setup many lists, including some that are for a short period of time.  Without these lists, I would never be able to know what is going!  For example, I have a Twitter list of 35+ people who frequently tweet about copyright.

Third, once you get into using lists, then you need to consider using software (app or web site) to help you.  Two that are frequently mentioned are Tweetdeck and Hootsuite.  I have used both and prefer Hootsuite (free version).  I use it on my mobile devices and through my browser.

Why do I like HootSuite?  From Being Social, Nov. 30, 2010)

1. It is easy to use. (quick start guide)
2. You can see multiple lists at once.
3. You can organize your lists into different tabs. I have my tabs organized by broad topic areas.
4. You can sync your browser version of HootSuite with the version that is on your phone, so each has the exact same columns (lists) and tabs.
5. The free version has a lot of functionality to it.

Yes, I recommend that you use the free version of HootSuite. A few of you may find that you'll need to upgrade to the pro version, but most will be quite happy with what the free version provides.

I should also note that Hootsuite allows you to schedule tweets.   You may not ever care about doing that, but there are instances when it can be handy.

Will Twitter may a difference in my life?  Yes and let me give you a few examples to illustrate.

• Use Twitter to share  URLs and ideas with your classmates in real time during class (if your instructor allows you to tweet during class).
• Follow your instructors, especially those who may use Twitter to communicate class information.  You may find that they will share information via Twitter before it goes out through other media.
• Follow hashtags for events - including professional conferences - and gain insights from tweets being sent from specific sessions.  Often the tweets will contain rich/important information.  It will be like you are reading someone's notes.
• By following the news media, you will know about breaking news events quickly.
• At conferences, tweets can help you figure out where people are going and when.  It can even tell you what sessions are "hot".
• Some use Twitter to organize events like meetups. 
• Many organizations are using Twitter as one of the ways they post job announcements.
• Twitter can enhance your professional reputation. While you might think I'd like this first, I'm listing it last on purpose.  Twitter does not enhance your reputation overnight.  Instead, you need to be a steady user of Twitter for quite a while and you need to be tweeting about things that the profession - your profession - care about.  You also need to be following and be followed by people who are well thought of professionally.  How do you know this has occurred?  Perhaps you're meeting people that you wouldn't have otherwise.  Maybe job announcements are being directed your way through Twitter.  It could be that you're being included in Twitter conversations with people that you admire.

Is there more that I can do with Twitter?  Yes. Once you are comfortable with Twitter, ask your followers how they use Twitter and learn from them.  Undoubtedly, you'll find that people use it differently and some of those uses might be things you will want to try.

Finally...I must admit that when I first heard that colleagues were using Twitter, I didn't understand it.  It wasn't until a I was the 2007 Computers in Libraries conference that I was able to watch people use it and talk to them about its benefit.  I joined Twitter on April 28, 2007 and it has had a huge upside in my life.  According to How Often Do You Tweet?, I tweet on average 7.8 times per day, but I can tell you I will tweet much more than that during a conference!  Of course, there are also days when I might only tweet once.  That type of ebb and flow has been okay both for me and my followers.

If you are like I was, you may not see the benefit, but I encourage you to jump in.  Swim the waters of Twitter for several weeks and then see how you feel about it.  You may find that you can't quite live without it!

The 67-minute video of this CNI Project Briefing will be of interest to librarians, those involved in digitization, and Dead Heads alike.  Very interesting to hear them talk about how they acquired content, how it was processed, etc., as well as how they are crowdsourcing some of the information.

Description: The Grateful Dead Archive (GDA) at UC Santa Cruz represents one of the most significant popular culture collections of the 20th Century and documents the band’s activity and influence in contemporary music from 1965 to 1995. At CNI’s spring 2012 membership meeting, UC Santa Cruz University Librarian Virginia Steel and Project Manager Robin Chandler discussed the particular challenges of merging a traditional archive with a socially constructed one.

There is still time to register for this....

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• "Excellent - I would recommend DF to anyone anticipating a digitization program"
• "I was very pleased. The team was exceptionally knowledgeable, friendly and personable."
• "Thanks, it has been an invaluable experience."
• "A really useful course and great fun too!"

• Planning and management
• Fund raising
• Understanding the audience
• Social media and its impact
• Metadata - introduction and implementation
• Copyright and intellectual property
• Sustainability, value and impact
• Financial issues
• Implementing digital resources
• Digital preservation

In an earlier post today, I wrote about the future of information access.  Here are the resources that I used for that guest lecture.

• 7 things you should know about haptics, http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7029.pdf
• How Haptics Will Change the Way We Interact With Machines, http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/news/4253368
• The International Society for Haptics, http://www.isfh.org/
• Fabian Hemmert: The shape-shifting future of the mobile phone (video), http://www.ted.com/talks/fabian_hemmert_the_shape_shifting_future_of_the_mobile_phone.html
• Jan Chipchase on our mobile phones (video), http://www.ted.com/talks/jan_chipchase_on_our_mobile_phones.html
• Pattie Maes and Pranav Mistry demo SixthSense (video), http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html
• The Future of Gaming, http://www.futuristspeaker.com/2008/06/the-future-of-gaming/ 
• The Future of Libraries, http://www.futuristspeaker.com/2006/11/the-future-of-libraries/ - This is not just about libraries.
• Look out: The 10 rising tech trends of 2012, http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/hiner/look-out-the-10-rising-tech-trends-of-2012/9470
• MIT Media Lab: Information Ecology, http://www.media.mit.edu/research/groups/information-ecology