Digitization 101

DAM LA 2010 highlights all the important issues - from the fundamentals of how to get started with a DAM solution to the latest and best practices in the management of digital media. Attendance at DAM LA 2010 ensures that everyone involved in the capture, storage and application of digital media assets is fully briefed on the latest developments and best practices.

Last week, the North Carolina State University Libraries released WolfWalk.  WofWalk is "an innovative tool that makes it easy to explore the NC State campus and its history. WolfWalk capitalizes on the location awareness of today’s mobile devices to allow users to give themselves a self-guided historical walk through NC State’s main campus. As users stroll around campus, their mobile devices detect their current locations and then deliver a tour of nearby buildings and other historically interesting locations. Users with devices that don’t support GPS or other location detection, including older iPods, can manually navigate through the site to enjoy a tour of campus." The press release goes on to say:

The new tool draws on the resources of the University Archives in the NCSU Libraries’ Special Collections Research Center, a vast array of documents, photos, audio files and other historical materials from the founding of the school up through the present.

 There is a preview of WolfWalk available on the NCSU web site.

If you point your mobile browser at http://m.lib.ncsu.edu/wolfwalk, you can use WolfWalk even it you are not on campus.  I just tried it and it is VERY cool!

During the last two days, I attended an online conference on the use of mobile technology in libraries (Handheld Librarian Conference).  The conference was completely virtual with people attending from locations across North America and from other parts of the world.  During the event, one of the presenters mentioned that Duke University allows you do view images from its collection on mobile devices.

With the launch of DukeMobile 1.1, the Duke University Libraries now offers the most comprehensive university digital image collection specifically formatted for an iPhone or iTouch device. It includes thousands of photos and other artifacts that range from early beer advertisements to materials on San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury scene in the 1960s. Although a growing number of scholarly institutions offer images and other material online, Duke is the first to offer collections that take advantage of the iPhone’s design, navigation and other features.

Not only is there an iPhone app, but there is also a site that can be used on mobile browsers. Besides the images, there is other content and information from Duke University that people on the go might want to access.

Below is a video that talks about the app and its use with Duke's image collections.



I really hope more digital collections follow Duke's lead!

Chris Anderson, who gave us The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More, has released his latest book entitled Free. While we'll have opportunities to purchase the book, he is also giving it away for free in a variety of formats. Not all formats will be free forever, so watch his blog for announcements.

The online format below is so easy to read that I immediately started reading it! (Embedded with permission.) This paragraph on page 4 provides a peek into what the book is about:

Thus this book, an exploration of a concept that is in the midst of radical evolution. As I came to learn, Free is both a familiar concept and a deeply mysterious one. It is as powerful as it is misunderstood. The Free that emerged over the past decade is different from the Free that came before, but how and why are rarely explored. What's more, today's Free is full of apparent contradictions: You can make money giving things way. There really is a free lunch. Sometimes you get more than you pay for.

FREE (full book) by Chris Anderson

BTW I'll be looking for discussions that might spring up around the book. I think just the way he is releasing it will be worthy of conversation.

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Technorati tags: Book Recommendation, Marketing

Every digitization program and digital libraries wants followers. As Seth Godin would say, they want a tribe. In his book, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us, Godin explains that:

A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea.

In the book, Godin talks about leadership and the creation of tribes. Tribes do not happen accidentally and they do not sustain themselves automatically. Communication is important among tribe members. Without communication, a tribe is just a crowd.

When we mount new services, we often are charged with creating a following for that service. Often we don't know how to do that. We do advertisements and some promotions, and then are thankfully for whatever user-base we achieve. This book will make you think about building a following -- a tribe -- differently.

Godin includes some principles in his book for leading a tribe. One of his principles will make people stop and think. It is "Exclude outsiders." In other words, knowing who isn't a part of your movement (your tribe) is as important as knowing who is. If you are trying to lead a group, who do you want to be part of that group? And who is the group not for? That clarity can be very important, because you cannot be all thing for all people.

It is very cool that Seth Godin practices what he preaches. Before Tribes was released, he began to gather a tribe. Once the book was published, he did something incredible. Everyone in his tribe had already ordered a copy of the book, but Godin sent them a second copy and ask that they share it with a friend. His tribe instantly doubled.

Let's look at this again. Godin created a message. Found people who were interested in the message and got them to join his tribe. Then he got them to influence others to read the message. And yes, he did this all online without any ads.

This is a very readable book (151 pages). I enjoyed reading it and being inspired by it, and I know others have found it inspiring as well. Is it a hardcore marketing book? No, and if it was, you wouldn't read it. Instead this is a book that you'll read and then pass along to your colleagues.

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Technorati tags: Book Recommendation, Marketing

So where will you be over the next few weeks? My travel schedule is below. If one of these events interests you, please check your calendar and see if you can attend. The more people, the better the conversation!

• May 21, Society of Ohio Archivists Annual Meeting, Columbus, Ohio (Archival Access & Accessibility: Tradition & Technology) -- What We Are Learning From Google & Flickr About Digitization and Partnership (Plenary Session)
• May 29, Rochester Professional Consultants Network, Rochester, NY (Marketing Yourself—The Power of Marketing through Publishing, Presenting & Teaching) -- Designing the Ideal Speaker Engagement: Creating ROI for You and the Audience (presentation)

• June 14, Special Libraries Association Annual Conference, Washington, DC - 10 Things in One Day: Applying social tools to your library (workshop with Sophia Guevara)
  
• June 15, Special Libraries Association Annual Conference, Washington, DC - Copyright, Social Media and the Corporate Library (panel discussion)
  
• June 16, Special Libraries Association Annual Conference, Washington, DC - The Consultant's Toolkit: Discovery in the Round (panel discussion)
• June 17, Special Libraries Association Annual Conference, Washington, DC - Digital Preservation: Discovery in the Round Conversation (panel discussion)
• June 24, Panhandle Library Access Network, Inc., Digitization 101: Planning & Management of Digitization Projects (workshop)
  

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Technorati tags: Digitization, Social Networking Tools, Digital Preservation, Marketing

I've been planning this post for a while and a conversation this morning made me realize that I should do this now.

How to give a good presentation is something that you learn by doing, learn by watching others, and learn from feedback. I found that I am constantly learning more about giving presentations and that as I learn more, my style changes (and hopefully improves). And while people may look at my presentations and be in awe, I am in awe of many of the presenters that I see.

At some point, we all have to give a presentation, whether it is to staff on a project proposal, to grant funding agencies on why our project is the most worthy, or to colleagues on what we've accomplished. How we give the presentation, as well as the content, can be very important. It is not just the words, but how we say them.

With that in mind, here are my seven top presentation tips:

1. Use language that your entire audience will understand. Take out the jargon and the acronyms. If you need to use jargon, explain it.
   
2. Tell stories to illustrate your points. Stories are very powerful tools.
   
3. If you are using PowerPoint, try to limit the number of slides as well as the number of words per slide. (See the 10-20-30 Rule of PowerPoint below). Larry Lessig, for example, uses PowerPoint masterfully because he understands the minimalist approach to his slides.
4. Realize that you cannot cover the entire world in 30 or 60 minutes. Craig Valentine suggests that you can thoroughly cover one major point in 10 minutes. If you try to cover too much in too short a period of time, you will lose your audience.
5. Don't memorize everything you are going to say. Yes, do practice your presentation several times (and out loud) and make notes to remind you of what you intend to say, but a memorized speech can sound memorized rather than natural. By the way, Aaron Schmidt suggests that you spend time learning additional information about your topic, rather than excessively practicing your presentation. That will help you feel confident about the topic and give you additional information for the Q&A.
6. Make a connection with the audience. Look at them. Smile. Talk to them. Engage them. When you do this, they will give you feedback (visual and oral) that will help you know that you are reaching them and getting your point across.
7. Be comfortable. If you aren't comfortable, you may not be in the right mood to get your point across. For me, this means double-checking what I have on and make sure I look fine (no food on my jacket!), as well as putting on lotion and lip balm. You may laugh, but it works for me!
   

If you have tips that you would like to share, please leave them as a comment.

Additional Resources:

02/15/2021: Some of these resources below are not longer available on their original websites, but may be available through the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, if you want to track them down.  I've noted where I've updated URLs.

• Life After Death by PowerPoint (video) (Don McMillan) [link updated]
  
• The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint (Guy Kawasaki) [link updated]
• HOWTO give a good presentation (Aaron Schmidt) [Check Wayback Machine]
  
• Presentation Tips (David Lee King) [link updated]
• Presentation Zen (Garr Reynolds)
• Tips from Craig Valentine (speech coach) [link updated]
• Really Bad Powerpoint (Seth Godin, added 1/27/2009)
• Stop Killing Students With PowerPoint (Sheldonict, added 1/27/2009)
• The Science Of Presentations (Kevin Gee, added 1/27/2009)
• 10 Tips for More Effective PowerPoint Presentations (Dustin Wax, added 1/27/2009)
• Giving Effective Presentations (Peter Bromberg, added 1/30/2009) [link updated]
• 20 tips for better conference speaking (Cameron Moll, added 2/17/2009)
• Doing a 15 minute presentation in 10 easy steps (Ryan Deschamps, added 4/10/2009)
• How to give a great talk (Barry Eisler, added June 5, 2009) [Check Wayback Machine]
• A Public Speaker’s Checklist (John Zimmer, added Aug. 9. 2011)
• Pres4lib Lightning Talk by Peter Bromberg, 7 min. video. (Added July 23, 2013) - Peter uses this fast-paced, humorous talk to talk about how to give a good presentation.

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At the American Association for State and Local History conference, Russell Gasero, archivist for the Reformed Church of America (RCA) gave each person in our presentation a DVD with four videos he had produced to promote his archives. The videos give a peek into the history of the church and show materials from the archives. Each is under 10 minutes in length. The archives web page contains one of the videos. During his presentation, Russell assured us that this had been simple to do and had given us an outline of his process (my notes). Through the use of pictures/video and words, Russell sparks our curiosity...and his he can do it, we all should be able to do it too!

I've just finished watching two of them...well done, Russ!

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Technorati tags: Digitization, Marketing

On Wednesday, I had the opportunity to present at the AASLH conference in Rochester, NY on a panel with John Ansley (Marist College), Russell Gasero (Reformed Church in America) and Duane Watson (Wilderstein Historic Site). Our topic was "Using Digital Collections to Expand Your Audience" and each of us took a different viewpoint on the topic.

I led off and talked about for digitization programs and how each is using its assets to promote their collections and institutions. My slides are below. I talked about two programs that had placed materials elsewhere on the Internet, then about two programs that had placed materials on their web site in interesting ways.

Russell Gasero talked about creating and using video at the Reformed Church in America to educate people about its history as well as what is in its archives. In the 1980s, the RCA wanted to produce a video about its history, however, a producing a video was going to cost $1000/minute. The RCA did do a 15 minute video, but there was much more that could be said. Russell is using software on his computer to create short videos. He noted that while people are purchasing high-definition TVs, our cell phones are video studios and playback devices. People seem to be okay with the rugged and rustic look from cell phone video. Therefore, we shouldn't be obsessed with having the best quality available.

When creating a video, Russell:

• Determines the purpose of the video
• Decides on the audience
• Works on his storytelling techniques
• Watch TV commercials in order to learn how to tell a short, succinct story.
• "Short is cheaper"
• "Brevity is beautiful"

His work flow is:

• Gather images/material
• Create a storyboard. You'll need approx. 10 minutes per minute minimum.
• Create the narrative and record the audio. Consider who, what, where, when, how and why.
• Put the images and the audio together.
• Look for transitions (how you get from one scene to the next) and keep it simple.
• Export to whatever medium you want.

Russell mentioned the following software -- PowerPoint Pro, Encore, Moviemaker and Audacity.

Duane Watson gave us a brief overview of Wilderstein, which is a historic house. The house is staffed by 200 volunteers and 2 paid staff. There are 10 people who work in the archives. The house has extensive holdings (45 rooms of "stuff"). Duane has worked with the Southeastern NY Library Resources Council to create digital images for Hudson River Valley Heritage. They digitize 108 items with help from an MLS student who was hired (grant funded). The 108 items equates to many more images, since some of the items are newsletters. For example, they digitized the American Field Service Bulletin.

John Ansley talked about the Lowell Thomas Travelogues that have been digitized at Marist College. This project is not yet completed (it will end in 2009). The 1000 cubit feet of materials spans the mid-1800s to the 1980s and include materials in all types of formats. He mentioned using Moviemaker and Audacity, as well as Google Analytics. John sees this digital collection as being a teaser for researchers. It will definitely attract me people to the collection.

After our presentation, I went to the exhibit hall (approx. 60 exhibitors) and visited with Alexander Street Press, Kirtas Technologies, Museum Association of NY, PastPerfect Software, and the Upstate History Alliance.

It was unfortunate that I couldn't stay for the more of the conference due to my crowded schedule. I know it would have been an educational and useful conference for me. Next year's conference will be August 27-30, 2009 in Indianapolis, IN. The call for proposals is already online. A session proposal must be submitted by an AASLH member, however, non-members may be presenters.

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Technorati tags: Digitization, Marketing

I once went to a public library circulation/reference desk and asked if the library director was there. The woman behind the test told me "no" and then returned to her previous conversation. She didn't ask if she could help me (or even why I wanted tyo see the library director), but thankfully someone else behind the desk did.

How's your customer service? Do people come on-site to work with your materials (the originals or digital surrogate)? How are they treated? If they call your facility, are they treated properly over the phone?

We always hope that cultural heritage institutions treat people better than some retail outlets. Perhaps, though, we should be consumers occasionally of our products and services in order to see how our staff treat our users.

Could it be this bad? We called a pizzeria Friday evening to order a pizza. The pizzeria is part of a famous national chain. First of all, the gentleman on the phone didn't know the price of the pizzas or other basic information. When I went in to pick up our order, the staff was hard at work, but was also ignoring customers that were standing in the store waiting to be served. When the delivery guy came back in to pick up more deliveries, he rushed through the store and bumped into a stack of five pizza boxes that someone was picking up. Two orders or bread sticks were dumped on the floor and one of the pizzas was ruined. I always was horrified, but the staff wasn't. Yes, they were going to replace the ruined items, but where was the huge apology? Great tasting pizza, but do I really want to order from them again?

Oh....of course, your staff isn't like that. Your staff is always professional and always puts the customer first. Always.

Maybe you better check.

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Technorati tag: Marketing

I am in Kalamazoo, MI in order to do a presentation this afternoon. The weather is 15 degrees (F) colder than normal and nothing phenomenal is walking distance from the hotel, so I have been hanging out indoors in an arcade/gaming area. The one game that I've been playing is an arcade basketball game, where the ball is smaller than a normal basketball and the hoop's height, etc., is different, so that making a basket is more difficult. The game tracks how many baskets are made in 60 seconds. As the person shooting the ball, I have to learn how to make a basket and I can't assume that what I would do on a normal basketball court would work.

The same is true when talking to management about the budget. You cannot assume that the reasons you would use elsewhere will work with them. Their focus is different. It may not just be on the bottom line, but on something specific that is important to them. For example, if you are talking to government officials about the budget, it is likely that they are interested in:

• Education -- Pre-kindergarten through college (P-16)
• Business -- Trying to increase the number of businesses in the community
• Workforce -- Creating and retaining a high-quality workforce
• Status -- The way their area is perceived

However, the rules of the game may not be obvious. Just like the hoops game, you may have to ask around to find our what is important or experiment. Experimenting can be counterproductive and could lead others to think that you are clueless (and perhaps you are). Once you have discerned the rules from others, you may want to experiment on the wording of the message. I wouldn't experiment in front of the decision-makers, but in front of colleagues and those who have rules memorized. Can you word the message so that your decision-makers will understand and endorse your initiative? Can they see the connection between what is important to them and what you want to do?

Unfortunately, when we pitch a project and its budget, we may get only one shot at it. That means that we need to work hard ahead of time to craft the message, test it out, and ensure that it conveys the right information. Thankfully, with the hoops game, I can always try again.

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Technorati tag: Marketing

In February, FUMSI published an article by Erica Wine entitled "Online Digital Special Collections in English Universities: Promoting Awareness." The article provide suggestions for curators "to enhance promotion and awareness of their online digital collections." It is quick read that contains useful information.

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Technorati tag: Marketing

As part of larger entrepreneurial effort in the Central New York region, I received a modest grant to produce a speaker series geared towards small and micro business owners, as well as business students. The first event was last evening and featured a gentleman who has owned a dozen businesses in total, seven at one time, and currently owns 3 - 4. When asked about marketing, he demonstrated how he gets information into the hands of interested parties. And then he talked about the number of business cards he gives out every month -- 500 business card! While some of us have been taught to give business cards and literature to people that we feel are truly interested, his belief is to give a business card to everyone and to leave them everywhere. He joked that people say they can tell where he has been by the trail of business cards.

Later, I talked about this with someone else who was at the session. The number of business cards and promotional pieces we give out each month is much less. Yet what would happen if we gave out more? What if we challenged ourselves to give out (a modest) four business cards a day (or 120/month)?

What does this have to do with you?

How many people each day or each month do you tell about your digitization program or your digitization services? How many business cards or pieces of literature do you give out each month? What if you increased that? What if you did like last night's speaker and left a trail of literature similar to the bread crumbs left by Hansel and Gretel?

One more thing...even though his newspaper's web site received thousands of hits per month, that was not good enough for him. He worked with his web team to develop the site so that it would get even more. How many hits is your program's web site receiving? If you don't know, find out. And then challenge your team to increase it!

For me, the bar has been raised on marketing. Hopefully today, you will raise your bar too.

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Technorati tag: Marketing

Quoting the blog post:
I mentioned yesterday, in a workshop on the Promotion & Use of Digital Project, that a project could successfully use a photo sharing service to promote itself. What a joy to see an announcement about this project in my email this morning!

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Tehcnorati tag: Marketing

Someone, who found the IST677 blog that my students have, asked the following questions. I've asked my students to respond the the questions. I've also liked to hear from you on this:

Are the terms "audience[s]," "user[s]," "reader[s]" and/or "visitor[s]" interchangeable or synonymous when thinking about and evaluating a digital project? And, ramping back a bit, what biases or assumptions with regard to "audiences" (broadly defined) are you and your students bringing to bear in evaluating such [digitization] projects?

The person noted that different types of organizations (e.g., museums) use different words. He wonders if there are inherent differences in these words OR in how we perceive the words?

Please leave comments with your thoughts. ALL thoughts are truly welcome.

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Technorati tag: Marketing

Are you looking for a way to promote your digitized materials? You might take some clues from the Northern New York Library Network which is sponsoring the Research the North Country Writing Competition. The purpose of the competition is:

to encourage original research concerning the people, places, and institutions of Northern New York. Participants are particularly encouraged to make use of the collections of libraries, archives, and other cultural resources in the region as primary resource materials.

And what materials are available for entrants?

Primary source research materials are available throughout the region, and many may found on-line through the Northern New York Library Network's website. Names and locations of academic and public libraries are available at Libraries in NNY; town/village/county historian information may be found through the Directory of Archival and Historical Document Collections; and electronic resources focusing on the region can be found at NNY Historical Newspapers [digitized materials] and North Country Digital History [digitized materials].

Very cool!

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Technorati tag: Marketing

Alastair Dunning in London (UK) has written a post about the possible impact on a web site when the digitized materials being displayed are for sale. Are commercial sites more inviting because they want people to buy? Should we all make sites so people will peruse as if they are trying to find the perfect item to buy?

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Technorati tag: Marketing

I am a non-book reading librarian and I readily admit it. I read articles, magazines, reports, web pages, but rarely books. Rather than curling up with a good book, I'm more likely to curl up with a stack of magazines or my Bloglines blogroll. Only a few books can capture and hold my attention. Recently, this one did.

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip and Dan Heath helps us understand why our users (or our coworkers) can repeat the latest web hoax, but can't remember anything about our projects. What we need to do is to create "sticky messages." Sticky messages are not necessarily creative messages. In fact, there is formula that the brothers Heath have discovered that will help us to create sticky, memorable messages. That formula is:

S -- Simple
U -- Unexpected
C -- Concrete
C -- Credible
E -- Emotional
S -- Stories

Two things you can do without even reading the book are:

• Use the word "you" in your writings. Many of us write in third-person neutral, but it turns out that making the reader think we're writing for them helps them connect with our text. For example:
• You will find on this web site...
• We can help you research...
• By using the advanced search feature, you...
• Tell stories. Now once you read the book, you'll realize that you need to tell simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional stories! However, we tend to spout facts and figures, when people actually react better to stories. So find stories about your projects that you can tell, especially stories that tell how your project can help people.
  

If you want to learn about the entire formula, borrow the book from your library, borrow it from a friend, or order a copy. It is an easy and enjoyable read, with lots of stories and ideas you can begin to employ.

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Technorati tag: Marketing

That text is on the top of a building on Tallahassee, FL and is the view from my hotel room. Tomorrow I'm giving a digitization workshop for the Florida-Caribbean Chapter of the Special Libraries Association. There are over 50 people registered for the workshop and, hopefully, the threat of bad weather (thunderstorms) doesn't deter people from attending. Today there have been tornadoes in Pensacola (two hours west).

I have no idea what digitization programs are going on in Tallahassee, but I hope that I'll find out in the next two days. A quick Internet search found the Florida Memory Project, which was done by the State Library and Archives of Florida (which I should be able to see from my window, too). What is unfortunate, it that I've seen nothing in the hotel or around the city that tells me of the online resources that are available. If I wanted to read about Florida or see images of Florida, where should I go online? Yes, I've griped about this before. It seems to me that projects that contain local history should market themselves to tourists and those who are passing through the area. I won't have time to tour museums, etc., here but I would have time to tour a digital collection about local history, if I knew that it existed.

Perhaps projects could find sponsors to help them place marketing materials in hotels. Or how about "ads" in publications aimed at tourists that tell people of the online resources that are available?

The bottom line is that our projects need to be more visible.

In early 2001, Luciano Pavarotti performed in Rochester, NY in the local indoor arena to a sold-out crowd. It was his only performance in Rochester during his long career. The local newspaper said his voice wasn't as good at it used to be, but the crowd saw and heard a man who had a wonderful voice and who performed with passion.

I went to the concert with a couple of friends and we sat in cheap seats (~$40 if I remember correctly) that were actually next to the stage (on the side...remember this was an arena). So we could not see him straight on, but from a side view. There were others -- in cheap seats -- who sat literally behind the stage and saw the entire concert from behind! They, however, were very appreciative and cheered loudly.

Here is the lesson.

Pavarotti did not ignore the people in the cheap seats. In fact, he went out of his way to wave often to the people who sat behind the stage. They -- like those in the very expensive seats -- were part of his audience. He knew that they appreciated his music and new that they might come to another concert, purchase a CD, etc. In other words, everyone there potentially was a customer who could spend more if he made a personal connection with them.

Our clients -- our users, our patrons -- are everyone who uses our services. We should treat them all the same and make the person who uses our services once feel as important as the person who uses our services many times. Why? Because everyone is a potential supporter and a potential donor. In looking for support, we often look for the "big fish", but what if many people were able to give a little money? Wouldn't all those small donations add up? And if those who could support us with small donations feel ignored, what does that say to those who might support us with big donations? That night in 2001, Pavarotti ignored no one and we all became his supporters.

Luciano Pavarotti will be missed. Yes, his voice will live on in many recordings. I hope, too, that the lesson he taught me in marketing is not lost.

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Technorati tags: Marketing, Pavarotti