Digitization Basics - New Jersey Collections Care Network

Attended by Elizabeth Howe on Tuesday, April 23, 2013

This workshop was presented by Thomas F.R. Clareson who is the Senior Consultant for Digital and Preservation Services at LYRASIS and Linda Langschied who is the Digital Projects Librarian at the Scholarly Communication Center, Rutgers University Libraries.  It was provided by the New Jersey State Library and the Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts (with generous funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services).

So, I drove to WheatonArts in Millville, New Jersey, early in the morning for another amazing conference venue!  WheatonArts is a fun place to visit, especially if you like glass (see below).

To give you an idea of what this conference was about, here is the outline:

Tools you can use for scanning and quality control.
Hardware, software, and metadata.
Making practical planning decisions:  in-house or outsourcing.
Collaborative digitization.
Practical planning decisions for staffing and budgeting.

This was an excellent, fast-paced conference.  I learned much and was given a "book" of useful information to consult.

WheatonArts is a national cultural treasure. Located on 65 wooded acres in southern New Jersey, WheatonArts is home to the Museum of American Glass, the Creative Glass Center of America International Fellowship Program, the largest folklife center in the Garden State, a hot glass studio, several traditional craft studios, five museum stores, a 13,000 sq. ft. Event Center and a beautiful pond-side picnic grove - a true Pineland Sanctuary!

Social Media on a Shoestring Budget

Attended by Elizabeth Howe on Monday, April 22, 2013

This presentation, at the Frederick County Museum of History, was free, and was delivered by Michelle Kershner, Marketing and Communication Manager for Visit Frederick.

Michelle talked about being deliberate about what you share (or not).  Ask questions such as "Is this piece of news worthy of sharing on a social network?"  And, if so, "How can we make it relevant?"  For example, if the boss thinks his or her dental practice should share the fact that the accountant won an award, you might put up a photo of the accountant with a big smile and say, "Ann, our accountant, flashing her pearly whites, won an award. . ." to help fit the message in with the promotion of the business.

Besides having lots of practical ideas for how to use social media to promote your business, non profit, repository, museum, etc., Michelle introduced us to some new ideas and resources.  I didn't know about Hootsuite (and other sites) that will shorten URL's.  She also mentioned using Animoto (embedded video) for putting free short video clips on your site.

Michelle demonstrated how she put a photo on Visit Frederick's Facebook page and discovered someone used it in another place that gave greater exposure, and it was eventually picked up and used by CNN for an even wider audience.  Also, the City of Frederick won a "Prettiest Painted Place" award, and she showed how she used social media to spread around the positive publicity that came from that.

   

Charlie 'Noiseguy' Williams

Posted on behalf of Nancy Sudine (ACLS, Westernport)

Charlie "Noiseguy" Williams was well worth watching. I make sounds with some of the books I read to my kids but not even close to what he does. Some of them I've been practicing and some of them I can't do (high pitched ones.) He shows what a big difference it makes when telling a story!

Summit 2013: Food Menu

All food items are served with biodegradable service ware and napkins. They might not be the prettiest forks and knives you've ever used but gosh darn it, they're Earth friendly!

Breakfast:

Sandwiches served on English muffins:

• Bacon, egg & cheese
• Bacon & egg
• Sausage, egg, & cheese
• Sausage & egg
• Egg & cheese
• Egg

Yogurts:

• Plain and strawberry
• With granola
• With fresh berries

Fresh fruit:

• Berries, grapes and strawberries

Beverages:

• Water will be available all day
• Coffee - caf and decaf 
• Hot tea - herbal and Lipton black
• Apple juice
• Orange juice
• Assorted sweeteners and creamers

Lunch:

Sandwiches:

• Roasted portabella with red pepper, pesto, fresh mozzarella on ciabatta bread
• The Club: turkey, ham and bacon with tomato, lettuce and cheddar cheese on white toast
• Roast beef and cheddar cheese with lettuce and tomato on a kaiser roll
• Condiments on the side

Pasta salad

Grilled vegetable platter: eggplant, zucchini, peppers and onions

Soup:

• Roasted butternut squash
• Tomato basil

Homemade potato chips

Cookies:

• Chocolate chip
• Peanut butter
• Sugar
• Oatmeal

Beverages:

• Water is available all day
• Unsweetened iced tea with assorted sweeteners

Afternoon snack:

Beverages:

• Coffee (caf and decaf) with assorted sweeteners and creamers served in to-go cups
• Vanilla caramel apple cider served in to-go cups
• Assorted sodas

Snacks:

• Brownies
• Rice Krispy Treats

Community Connections with Annie Norman

Here is the recording of a really great webinar about the ways that Delaware public libraries are connecting to their communities.  The whole webinar isn't edge-of-your-seat-exciting, but it has some very cool moments that are worth the hour of your time to check out.

High-points for me:
1. DE is using the OCLC "Geek" campaign to focus attention on libraries.  The question is, what do you geek?  For instance, I geek reading romance novels and I geek gardening.

DE is collecting all of the things/ideas/areas that community members are excited about and taking it a step further by classifying those 'geeks' into Dewey Classification.

In the below image, you'll see that they are classifying their circ info, Overdrive circulation, reference questions and what do you geek, into Dewey.  They now have a visual guide of where to put programming energy, collection development and training.

 

The other super cool part of their community connection strategy has been to have community meetings to talk about what dreams community members have for themselves, their families, their communities and the state.  At each of these community meetings, a visual artist documents the ideas that are generated.  This is awesome...

The image combines the "what do you geek" question with the ideas generated from the facilitated, "what are your hopes and dreams" discussions.  DE also did What do you Geek billboard at three spots in the state.

I love this campaign as a way of inspiring library staff and the community, using Dewey to promote collections, plan programming around engagement, speak to hopes and dreams and place libraries at the center of the community.

Last favorite bit -- DE will be adding "ice-breakers at every program" to their Best Practices for Programing toolkit.  Making connections and engaging the community is one of the best things that we can do as libraries (I think).  Simple things like, everyone say hello to the person beside you and talk about what you are reading or listening to right now.

Cool stuff!  How can we adapt or adopt these ideas?

LWC: Arts and Religion Day

On Friday, April 12th, I attended Leadership Washington County's Arts and Religion Day and it was by far my favorite of all the LWC class days.

The thesis for the day was, "What opportunities are there for active participation in the arts in Washington County, MD?"

The short answer is: where aren't there opportunities for active participation in the arts?

No, it's not for sale ... unless you want to buy it.

We started our day at the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts where we split into small groups to go experience different artsy activities. My first stop was at the Mansion House (home to the Valley Arts Association) where we learned about the local artists' exhibits that are on display and how inexpensive it is for local artists to display their works of art there. Then we got to do what ended up being my favorite part of the whole day: we learned how to paint with watercolors. I enjoyed it so much that I kept worrying that we were going to be told at any minute that we need to leave and go to the next part of our day!

The artist who taught us is a professional watercolor painter and has created some astounding pieces for which I now have a much, much greater respect and appreciation for because I had a hard enough time painting the tulip you see above.

After we painted, we went back to the museum and enjoyed a fascinating, albeit brief, tour of the collections given by a Master Docent. Much like with the watercolors, I found myself not wanting the time to end. There was so much to see and learn. One bit of information I picked up is how to appreciate a quality portrait. As it turns out, it's all in the eyes. I don't mean the "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," but rather a good portrait is measured by the quality of the painting of the eyes. Are they realistic - both up close and at a distance? A skilled portrait artist can paint extremely realistic eyes that are lifelike no matter where you stand to appreciate the work; if glasses are in front of the individual's eyes, that's even further evidence of an artist who is particularly gifted in this type of painting.

Image courtesy of rockwellpaintings.org

The last little bit of our time at the museum was spent in their vault learning about their preservation and collection development efforts. The museum has roughly 7,000 pieces but only 10% are on display at any given time. When they aren't on display, the pieces are hung neatly in sliding metal cage-like slats, arranged solely by size. We got to hear stories about how the museum came by its one Norman Rockwell piece. A bastardized version of the story is pretty much the director of the museum at that time wrote a letter asking for it and Mr. Rockwell said, "Ok, give me a thousand bucks for it and it's yours."

Moral of the story is: ask and ye shall receive...if ye has the money.

Ok, so I'm being more than a bit flippant but it is amazing how much of the collection has been received simply through donation, and through folks and especially European institutions, selling pieces cheaply (especially after WWII) and wanting them to be in a safe place. I am looking forward to going to back to the museum and spending more time there.

During lunch we were treated to a few performances by local poets and musicians, two of whom are the stars in the upcoming Barbara Ingram School For the Arts' musical, Legally Blonde.

After that, the LWC class 26 was taught, by BISFA students and faculty, how to sing and dance to the Bend and Snap piece of the musical, which we rehearsed over and over again so we could actually perform it with the students during their afternoon rehearsal. I hear there is a video of us somewhere...

In the end, I found this day to be quite personally serendipitous because I had just that morning started to read Seth Godin's The Icarus Deception. One of the very first lines in the book is, "We are all artists now."

I consider myself an artist - both in the traditional and non-traditional sense - I write haiku, I melt bottle caps into other forms that I'm not quite sure what will happen with them but I'm convinced something artistic will become of them. But I think I'm most pleased with my non-traditional art - the way I am able to facilitate groups and use my words to craft emotionally intelligent and visually stimulating emails, articles, and Facebook posts (that actually move people to take my surveys, participate fully in brainstorming sessions, and buy 50 Get-A-Way raffle tickets).

This actually got me thinking about our previous LWC days and how I wish we could do it all over again - knowing what we now know - and incorporate a little bit of each of the days into each other. For example, for the Cultural Heritage day that's coming up in May, I wish we could focus on cultural heritage but examine it through the lenses of human services AND education AND literacy AND local gov't AND business and economics AND arts and religion, etc. Do you get the idea?

Hmm, wait a minute, aren't I a part of the cultural heritage group?

"To Sell is Human" - Dan Pink also says ...

Dan Pink also says ...

• Have an empty chair at meetings to remind you what the customer would think
• Social Cartography or an attunement map is a useful tool to identify the power players in a meeting
• In meetings, avoid the vortex of the "talker" who offers a one-sided barrage of questions and comments without receiving responses (there's always one!)
• Make time to use effective subject lines in email correspondence
• Prepare for sales pitches by asking yourself questions to overcome objections
• Questions are active and engaging and help identify the source of resistance and offer solutions 
• Questions help us summarize our own reasons and create a path to sustained behavior
• Look for common ground with people
• Start with small changes
• The new movement in sales and management is toward Servant selling and Servant leadership
• Upserving is the new upselling (humane and effective)
• Treat everyone you meet as if they were your Grandmother
• Always ask and answer these 2 questions
• 1. "If the person you're selling to agrees to buy will his/her life improve?"
• 2. "When your interaction is over, will the world be a better place?
• "If your answer to either of these is no, you're doing something wrong."