SLA Presentation April 2013

How have you approached digitization?

RESOURCE SHARING

OUR FLICKR STORY (Fall 2008 - Present)

How do you approach social networking?

Case study: Repurposed extracted resources

Automating Twitter

Paper.li

Other disseminators began repurposing our news

Building Paper.li

Hyper-automated

Blogger to Wordpress

Social Media:

How it all started

How can we lessen the burden?

• RSS, Readers
• Blog RSS, email subscription, links from other tools and webpages

Rethinking the Library/Archive:

More than just a "clearinghouse"

Widgets and Plug-Ins

Resource Sharing:

Catalog

OAC

Flickr

YouTube

Scribd

(discovery tools vs. preservation tools)

We will never have enough people, enough time, or enough money to rely on traditional library services effectively

Apps (Mobile App for Metro)

Our role in the larger information community:

• News/ Information
• Resource Sharing
• Social Networking

Repurposing existing Library 1.0 Tools into something more compelling

Challenge:

There is a social media tool to facilitate

every aspect of what we want to do.

Serving 9,000 employees plus other constituents

NEWS & INFORMATION

Anniversaries & Facts

resources becomes

Primary Resources calendar

It all started with news -

The Los Angeles Transportation Headlines:

Define yourself before others define you

Blog + RSS feed + Email subscription = Success

about our agency

Nearly 8 years later, still going strong

Phase 1 Activities:

Thinking about digitization and social media:

http://metroprimaryresources.info/

• News and Information
• Resource Sharing
• Social Networking

News and Information:

Early days: Scan and send documents as requested “on demand”

Problems with file size and email restrictions >> Solution: Externally-accessible server

Begin scanning photos to launch Flickr collection

What we don't have

Blog

Twitter

Paper.li

• Time
• Staff
• Peak Budget
• Traditional Access

The calendar offers us an opportunity to promote other resources associated with that date, as well as extracted resources from the digitization project.

Phase 1 Behind the Scenes:

Phase 1:

Digitize content as needed/ Be nimble

Our previously answered reference question file (ready reference file) becomes a KNOWLEDGE BASE WIKI

where you can centrally host information about a particular topic.

Daily Transportation Headlines: Become an integral part of the information landscape

Email via Reference (save those questions and answers!)

Build resource lists on external website and intranet portal

Providing greater access to materials without negative impact to staff

Budget and time constraints (57% budget cut in FY10)

Meet the growing information needs of internal and external users

Providing greater access to materials without negative impact to material

• High-interest collection dating back to 1873
• 40% unique
• 50,000 items
• Archive
• Multiple formats
• Users hungry for information

Providing context for complex social, political, historical nature of transportation

Preserving original content without limiting consumption

Supporting our institution’s mission

Educating internal and external users and potential users about the value of information

Phase 2 Activities:

Informing users how the past and present informs the future

Accommodate increasing demands in the Measure R era

...with 2 full time librarians

Clearly, the traditional model does not work with this paradigm!

“Digitization” vs.

“24/7 Access / “Anytime, Anywhere”

How do we communicate the value of this focus and remind users every day that we are a vital part of the organization as well as regional history?

Digitization:

How it all started

What do we have?

Digitization and Social Media:

Killing two birds with one stone

Digitization and social media are logical options - and are even more effective when they are paired together.

Scan project collections

Begin adding links to catalog records

Harvesting "born digital" and gray literature

Initiate document sharing site

Establish ourselves as responsive and reliable

• Preserve originals
• Allow for multiple simultaneous users
• Allow us and users to repurpose
• Enable sharing large documents

3 Phases of Digitization:

Guiding principles that make digitization even better than "free" library services (value-added)

Phase 2: Digitize more systematically

(promote and re-purpose)

Immediacy: “Expectation economy” and time-sensitive value

Personalization: Delivery tailored to needs and proficiency of user

Authenticity: Reinforcing the perception of providing original, unaltered information

Interpretation: Access to everything can be just as useless as access to nothing

Phase 2 Behind the Scenes:

Our Eight “Better Than Free” Generative Values Of Digitization:

•Immediacy

•Personalization

•Interpretation

•Authenticity

•Accessibility

•Findability

•Embodiment

•Patronage

Accessibility: Elbowing our way into an increasingly agile and mobile world

Automating News & Information: Paper.li, Twitterfeed

Findability: Providing access means nothing if users cannot locate it

WHAT LIES AHEAD:

“TO BOLDLY GO”…

Primary Resources Blog for deeper research and bigger stories

Twitter, Facebook, Paper.li: Communicating every day

Enhancing Flickr, YouTube

Accommodate growing need for externally-accessible resources (http://libraryarchives.metro.net/DPGTL)

Automatic feeds to Facebook and Twitter

Embodiment: Becoming a trusted source for and protector of primary resources

Patronage: The only thing better than free is more of it – Keep them coming back for more

Which values resonate with you?

Automating Resource sharing functions: HistoryPin, crowdsourcing metadata projects

Create > Communicate >

Re-purpose > Promote

Phase 3 Activities:

Shelf-by-shelf inventory

Establishing protocols for OCR, standardized metadata, file structure

Harvesting embedded content as stand-alone resources (e.g. maps, charts)

Phase 3:

Digitizing Comprehensively &

Inter-relate Everything

Unanticipated Events:

Phase 3 Behind the Scenes:

Explore new collaborations (Historypin, California Highways)

Explore new tools (“This Date” calendar, timeline, family tree, knowledge base)

SOCIAL NETWORKING

Knowledge Base wiki will become platform for all information related to a topic: links out to Historypin for geographic and visual context (keep Flickr as a discovery tool)

How do you share news of your activities & accomplishments?

CALIFORNIA HIGHWAYS

(1924-1967)

AUTOMATED PROCESSES:

Facebook // RSS Graffiti //

Establishing your expertise in the community to comment on news stories etc.

Kenn Bicknell

Collect and disseminate

Digital Resources Librarian

Batch uploads:

OK, this sounds like it is MORE work, not less!

Quantity over Quality

Continue Headlines (Google Reader going away,

so challenges are always present even after you automate and refine)

Unanticipated events

http://www.flickr.com/photos/metrolibraryarchive/8434598722/in/set-72157630054476341/

Multiple ways to collect, multiple ways to disseminate

The Dorothy Peyton Gray Transportation Library and Archive is one of the most comprehensive transit operator-owned library resources in the United States. As the only multimodal transportation library in Southern California, we serve employees, the public, governments and research institutions.

OUR YOUTUBE STORY

(Fall 2008 - Present)

Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority Library and Archive

Historypin

Using social media as a discovery tool

Conversion from film to DVD

Continue building calendar:

New dates, new items for existing dates, new resources for existing items.

Push out in our own mobile app in the future.

Integrating Everything

Now we have cloud computing,

Discovery tools like Flickr, YouTube are great,

but will they be around in 10 years? 5 years?

so you can host your own stuff but promote it for discovery through popular free (or low-cost) web-based tools

Automating Social Networking functions: Facebook (RSS Graffiti)

Robust suite of free, web-based social media tools

Tiki-Toki

People Plotr

Exploiting RSS to automatically feed properties for effortless dynamic content

Determining mutually-beneficial relationship: Occidental College

Key components:

Overdrive at the Getty

SUGGESTIONS FOR GETTING STARTED

•Scanning each issue

•Consistent OCR, resizing and metadata are all important!

•Systematic file naming for predictable root URL

•Creating a Google Custom Search interface for full-text searching

•Two persistent URL links: one for file directory, one for GCS

•Add both links to OCLC Master Record

Learn what is going on in the business community and other areas outside the Library (Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, Tech Blogs, Pew Center Studies, Major newspapers including science, innovation, tech, travel)

READ! 23 Things, Internet Library conference proceedings...

LA as Subject can serve as a model for

BAY AREA as SUBJECT, or HISPANIC CALIFORNIA as Subject.

Avoid the great irony:

Partner!

• Collaborate
• Grants
• Buddy up

Most important periodical relating to state road and highway planning & construction

Compliments Metro’s growing involvement in highway management

Supports scholarly research comparing history of transit to history of automobile use

Can CSA begin a 23 things program together?

VISUAL RESOURCES created one for Archivists.

We did a lot of this alone, but we certainly have thrived because of the experiences and support from LA as Subject, SLA-TRAN and other information professionals we work with.

Google Custom Search

"Pacific Coast Highway"

Leveraging search capability