Digital Collections Users’ Group Meeting: September 19, 2012

Conference Call

Members present: Chris Day (Chair, School of the Art Institute of Chicago), Ellen Corrigan (Eastern Illinois University), Peter Hepburn (University of Illinois at Chicago), Benn Joseph (Northwestern University), Laurie Sauer (Knox College), David Levinson (Lake Forest College), Adam Strohm (Newberry Library)

Members absent: Mary Rose (Southern Illinois University Edwardsville), Julia Thompson (Western Illinois University)

CARLI Staff present: Amy Maroso (CARLI Staff liaison), Jessica Gibson

Confirmed Benn as minutes taker.

Minutes from the in-person August 15 meeting were approved with no additional corrections.

Project updates

1. Promoting Digital Collections Glossary (David): no updates on glossary.
2. Twitter Account (Benn): has done a bit of investigating with the DCUG twitter account.  Currently there are 28 tweets and the feed has 20 followers.  Benn feels it is possible to use the feed for announcing a variety of DCUG related events such as webinars, meetings, the Featured Image (or as it is eventually named), and re-tweeting items from the general CARLI feed.  It can also be used more broadly for linking to pertinent articles, SPEC kits, and other items of interest regarding digital preservation.
3. Google Analytics (Chris): updates on keywords (Adam) and link sources (Chris).  No directions for how to post GA stats to the CARLI website yet, but there are more questions about link sources and where we want to go, so that will probably be the next step (figuring out what’s useful and how we can simply get useful information out of it). Work is just beginning so there will be plenty of opportunities to get involved.  Biggest linker to various CARLI digital collections is a tumblr on Chicago history.  Interesting to note that there is no attribution or links anywhere on the blog.  Need to dig a little deeper on that (Chicagopast.com).
4. Image of the Week (Mary): Chris read a statement from Mary Rose, who was not in attendance.  There was a positive response to her sample Image of the Week blog post.  Should the posts be signed with a byline by the author?  What should the frequency be?  Shall we solicit contributions from CARLI members outside DCUG?  Is it possible to have two or more DCUGers to handle it on a monthly or bi-monthly basis?  Who will manage and for how long?  Change title to “Picture Break” or something else?  All DCUG members expressed interest in helping out and doing one or two images.  Should we build up a backlog of these?  Ellen and Mary will start it out. Title of the blog is tabled for now, more brainstorming to ensue.
5. Digital Preservation joint subcommittee: scheduled to meet tomorrow; no update right now.

Other/New business

1. Chris and Laurie received a letter addressed to the DCUG from CARLI praising the accomplishments of the committee over the past year (and calling particular attention to the “Anatomy of a Digital Project” series), which Chris read to the group.  Adam has begun to informally collect information about CARLI member library digital collections (content and contact people) to begin brainstorming for a series of interviews that might be done in order to showcase individual member collections.
2. The next monthly meeting will be held on October 17 at 10:00 a.m. as a conference call.