conferences

Clive Izard and Michael Stocking present interactive activities at the British Library. it's not like this:

they built on the success of their Turning the Pages applications, that let you page through treasures from the BL (presented in Shockwave) each of which was is separately created and individually animated. they partnered with microsoft to demonstrate vista, and created Turning the Pages 2.0 that takes advantage of its 3D capabilities. it includes animations of 'book dynamics' [turning pages] based on curators actually turning the pages, so the pages wrinkle and curl. a light source reflects off the gold leaf. browsing is enhanced by navigation, englargement, transcription, and comparison of multiple volumes in the same workspace (with relative size). functionality was defined in conjunction with curators (based on tasks like comparing multiple editions, sketches and published works...)

The MCN program this year includes a number of opportunities for less structured learning, and conversation.

IMLS Project Demonstrations on Wednesday introduced projects funded by US Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) National Leadership Grants. during a coffee break, delegates could wander through the demonstrations, see the projects that were funded, and identify people to talk to later about how to make their next grant application work.

This morning, a new format of "Case Studies" introduced a series of projects in brief (5 minute) introductions that were followed by break-out discussions. it looks like this format might work, but the spaces provided for the breakouts [single tables per topic at the back of the room], and the lack of coffee [at least for me], might have limited the discussions.

However, they were good conversations, and this is a format that should be pursued.

Sheila Carey chairs a session on evauation in web spaces.

Beth Kanter {see http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/] on evaluating social media talks about moving beyond measuring static use of web sites to get at ways of appreciating the impact of social media.She cites Scoble: audience, engagement, loyalty, influence, and action for some principles that help understand the impact of a site in a social media context. Overally, she notes that trends are more important than actual numbers, as many of these measures (such as ) are hard to quantify. See socialmediametrics.wikispaces.com for a link to her slides.

Tim Hart introduces analytics as used at the Getty Trust, and the challenges of adapting measures that are e-commerce focused to mission-driven organizations. As an example, he looks at a page from the Getty Museum Site. The click map shows that people are going to the things that the page highlight; netgenesis stats show more detail, that lets you compare clicks to actual usage?. it makes it clear that many people link deep into the site, and that section pages aren't necessarily seen. but bot and spider traffic are a significant number of page views and need to be removed (javascript based tools can help filter those out). trends are more important than actual numbers. Metrics need to be compared to other measures, including interviews, visits ...

Jim Michalko introduced a panel of MCN's Past Presidents: Diane Zorich, Susan Patterson, Chuck Patch, Sam Quigley, Marla Misunas

The panel reflected on the history of MCN, and the challenges that they faced during their tenure, adminstrative, or mission-based. They reflected on challenges such as internationalization, collaboration across the discipline and beyond it, standards deveopment (particularly with CIMI), communications (spectra, web site development, board and governance).

Jim asked the panel to reflect on the issues that the profession has faced, and our achievements in past few years.

Quigley: professional development is a critical issue for us all. we need to find a way to go for it, and define the question of competencies, to help people with training.

Zorich: AAM and MCN need to refine their relationship, to raise the voice for technology at the leadership level.

Misunas: noted that Holley Witchey has helped play this role, particularly when MCN has exhibited at AAM. [Holly mentioned a Musematic post -- but a quick google doesn't find it, help? Thanks to Richard, see below, here's the link: http://musematic.net/?p=46))

we've just released the steve.museum paper that provides background to the demonstration Susan Chun will be giving at ICHIM07. it begins to present the methods for steve.museum's IMLS-funded national leadership grant (research), focussing on our data collection strategy and the steve tagger.

it also includes some preliminary results about attitudes to tagging amongst museum staff, and early analyses of tags collected. Early results in prototype tests are holding up. We're seeing a greater than 75% new tag rate:

"Of the tags assigned to all works during Term Set 1 (March 27– July 11, 2007), 76.5% (7,973 of 10,418) were not found in museum documentation." (Trant 2007)

That means that, during our first phase of data collection, more than three-quarters of the tags assigned in the steve tagger were not found in the museum's own documentation for those works.

/jt

Trant (2007). Trant, J., et al., The eye of the beholder: steve.museum and social tagging of museum collections

, in International Cultural Heritage Informatics Meeting (ICHIM07): Proceedings, J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds). Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics. 2007. Published September 30, 2007 at http://www.archimuse.com/ichim07/papers/trant/trant.html

To date, 20 countries will be represented at ICHIM07 in Toronto, October 24-26, 2007.

• Australia
• Austria
• Belgium
• Canada
• Denmark
• Estonia
• France
• Germany
• Greece
• India
• Ireland
• Italy
• Japan
• New Zealand
• Norway
• Scotland
• Sweden
• The Netherlands
• United Kingdom
• USA

As can be seen from the papers on-line, this ICHIM is going to be a great opportunity for interchange, and a chance to see a broad range of diverse cultural heritage informatics applications. With time still to register, i'm sure we'll add to an already impressively diverse group of delegates.

/jt

New Media Caucus CAA Affiliate Panel
Call for Papers:

CAA Conference: February 20-23, 2008 in Dallas

Panel Title: art blogging == global.exhibit(local);
Panel Chair: Paul Catanese
Assistant Professor of New Media
San Francisco State University
Email: paulc@sfsu.edu

papers are now on-line for ICHIM07 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, October 24-26, 2007. over 50 groups will be reporting at ICHIM07 on the state of the art in cultural heritage informatics, and plotting the issues we face in the future. see the list at http://www.archimuse.com/ichim07/speakers/index.html

well, true to form, we've been watching the proposals for Museums and the Web 2008 flow in all day. what is it about our always on culture that's embedded this last minute madness in the way we work?

i know that even though it's late on friday (most places) we'll see some more filter in tonight. and then there's tomorrow and the next day (did anyone notice it was a weekend?); we didn't when we set the deadline...

ah well – we know that there's a problem in museum culture: a lack of time to be reflective, even though that's one of the things we try to provoke in our work [thinking, learning, seeing anew – aren't these what we want our visitors to do?].

as our small contribution to collective memory, we've insisted on written papers for Museums and the Web (and we keep them all online).

so now, make that reflexive jump towards the next deadline: September 30, 2007. Museums and the Web, Montreal, April 9-12, 2008. Call for Particiption. we want to see your best work, and participate in the process of discussing, documenting and sharing it. we can all take some time out to learn.

/jt

Jon Pratty's posted some new photographs of Museums and the Web 2007 in our MW2007 flickr group. it's nice to know that i'm not the only one who takes a while to get my pictures organized -- and to see some changes in the images in the right nav bar of this site. no matter how random flickr says it is, it definitely favours some images over others (or seems to start in the same place). maybe there's a setting i've missed?

thanks Jon!

/jt

Xavier @ ICHIM03 in Paris: Xavier and the sixth finger, at l'École du Louvre.

/jt

 

 

ICHIM07 is dedicated to the memory of Xavier Perrot, our partner and friend, who attended every ICHIM conference and co-chaired the meetings in 2003 (Paris), 2004 (Berlin) and 2005 (Paris) before his untimely death from cancer on July 20, 2007.

His convivial and inquisitive spirit continues to inspire us all.

ICHIM07 - International Cultural Heritage Informatics Meetings
Toronto, October 24-26, 2007
http://www.archimuse.com/ichim07/

The preliminary program for ICHIM07 is now on-line. Thanks once again goes to the Program Committee who helped review proposals and recommend selections. Speakers are coming from 20 countries around the world:

We've now completed Program Committee Review, and are beginning to send out paper acceptances for the upcoming International Cultural Heritage Informatics Meeting, to be held October 24-26, 2007 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Our thanks, once again, to everyone who proposed. There are always far more good proposals than there are places on the program, and it is always a difficult decision. The input of the Program Committee is invaluable. As well as reviewing submissions, they've helped us define appropriate venues for presentations and have recommended we offer demonstration or briefing slots to some projects that have proposed papers.

Tagging today and tomorrow

Thomas Vander Wal

Pew study stats on tagging -- 7% of people in the US study daily

history of tagging in keyword description of resources has a long history (lotus notes, compuserv forums, bitsy)

definitions

• personal free tagging of pages for one's own retrieval

object --> interest --> identity

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