Twitter and Digitisation Projects
Many digitisation projects have an interest in (or feel that they should be) engaging with social networking and communication tools.
Many projects are tempted to automatically adopt the use of sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Blogger, LinkedIn, as well as share information through Flickr, Vimeo, You Tube, Second Life, Digg, StumbleUpon, Google Groups…etc….
But with so many different tools and sites out there, and with the different range of projects and outputs that digitisation produces, it can be difficult to find the tools that will really work for your project.
It is important that time is spent on using the tools that help maximise the aims and objectives of the project itself. Resources are often limited meaning that participating in Web 2.0 simply for the sake of it is not a viable option.
There might be a variety of ways to assess the use of a particular tool or site to a project, but one way would be to create a chart to plot the use of a resource against the aims and objectives of the project.
I have created a very simplistic example of what such a chart might look like.
Examples of some recent projects that have sucessfully used Twitter for their project are:
- First World War Digital Poetry Archive - Have used a range of social networking sites very effectively including Facebook and Twitter.
- East London Lives - Although this project only has a holding website, they have been able to engage a wide audience of interested followers with Twitter and Flickr.
- Serving Soldier - Again this is a young project, but have successfully used Twitter as a way to highlight interesting parts of their collection, and engage interested communities. They have also been very strong bloggers.
Like many social networking sites, Twitter in particular is an excellent way for projects to highlight new collections they have digitised, or recently made available online.
It is also a wonderful way to create a ‘count down’ to the launch of a website or new online presence. Twitter also offers projects a unique way to ask for help, get feedback and call upon a vast and interested community of possible users.
Most important of all, it is fast and demands a limit on the amount of time and input it asks of you!
Managing a Digitisation programme
The JISC Digitisation programme is coming to end and most projects have launched, or are about to, the digital resources created over the past couple of years.
What are the key issues that projects felt they would need support on during the development of their resources and what kind of support has JISC provided to projects?
Key issues signled out by projects at the outset of the programme:
- IPR and licencing
- evaluation methodologies
- metadata (technical and descriptive)
- marketing and publicity strategies
- digital preservation
- Quality Assurance
- Web search and delivery
- Incorporating Web 2.0
- Interface design
- creation of e-learning resources
Support activities offered to projects throughout the programme:
- workshops and training days
- presentations
- ad hoc support through specialist consultants
- surgeries
- promoting knowledge sharing through meetings, group work, mentoring schemes, visits to each other’s projects, email discussions
- commissioned studies
- regular contact with JISC Programme Managers
In general, feedack from projetcs on these activities has been very positive, but it’s interesting to notice that the most consistent positive comment about such initiatives was the value of meeting other projects, networking, sharing ideas, issues and challenges, and on the whole the opportunity for discussion as part of a community of practice.
Millions more newspapers pages to be available on Google
Today Google announced that they are launching:
“an initiative to make more old newspapers accessible and searchable online by partnering with newspaper publishers to digitize millions of pages of news archives.”
This adds to the large amount of existing online newspaper content, by publications such as the New York Times and the Washington Post, that is already being crawled by Google.
In addition, Google has entered a partnership with ProQuest and Heritage that will allow even more newspapers pages to be digitised and made available online. As the ProQuest press-release explains:
“ProQuest will contribute content to the partnership, and will introduce newspaper publishers nationwide to the program. ProQuest will also supply from its microfilm vault newspaper content that can be delivered effectively in the less formal framework of the open web.”
Newspapers content will be available through Google News Archive Search:
“Search results include content from a number of sources, including both partner content digitized by Google through our News Archive Partner Program and online archival materials that we’ve crawled. Search results can include content that is freely accessible as well as content that requires a fee. Articles related to a single story within a given time period are grouped together to allow users to see a broad perspective on the topics they are searching. “
Public-private partnership delivers thousands of images for free
Thanks to a public-private partnership between the Bodleian Library and ProQuest, thousands of images from one of the world’s most important collections of printed ephemera are being made freely available to all UK universities, further education institutions, schools and public libraries.
The John Johnson Collection: An Archive of Printed Ephemera, part of the JISC Phase Two Digitisation Programme, is now available at http://johnjohnson.chadwyck.co.uk and http://johnjohnson.chadwyck.com.
This first release comprises more than 6,300 images, drawn from the five key areas that will eventually be covered in the final collection for a total of about 150,000 images, including theatrical ephemera from the 19th Century Entertainment category, the Booktrade, Popular Prints, Advertising and material on Crimes, Murders and Executions.
The web site provides information on how to access the collection through your institution or public library.
JISC/NEH transatlantic collaboration grants announced
Five digitisation projects are to be awarded funding of around £600,000 ($1,150,000) under a transatlantic collaboration between JISC and the US National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).A call for proposals issued last November invited scholars in England and the USA to collaborate on digitisation, the aim of the £600,000 ($1,150,000) programme being to unite scholarly collections split between the two countries, explore innovative approaches to digitisation and match expertise in one country with collections to be digitised in the other.
The funded projects are:
- The St Kitts-Nevis Digital Archaeology Initiative (Southampton University / Thomas Jefferson Foundation)
- The World Wide Web of Humanities (Oxford Internet Institute / Internet Archive)
- Shakespeare Quartos Archive (Oxford University / Folger Shakespeare Library)
- PhiloGrid (Imperial College / Tufts University)
- Concordia (King’s College London / New York University)
Read on to find out more about the projects
You can also listen to a podcast from the JISC/NEH launch event at King’s College London about issues in international digitisation, including interviews with key figures in the collaboration.
Developing International Collaboration for Digitisation: the JISC - National Endowment for Humanities perspective
Developing International Collaboration for Digitisation: the JISC - National Endowment for Humanities (NEH) perspective
Hosted by King’s College London. Monday 21st January, 5.30pm - 6.45pm (Room 2B08, Strand Campus)
With presentations and commentary from
- Bruce Cole, Chairman, National Endowment for Humanities
- Malcolm Read, Executive Secretary, JISC
- Paul Ell, Director, The Centre for Data Digitisation and Analysis, Queen’s University Belfast
- Robert K. Englund, Professor of Assyriology at the University of California and Director of the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative
Chaired by Sarah Porter, Head of Development, JISC
In celebration of their transatlantic digitisation collaboration grants, JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) and the NEH (National Endowment for Humanities) are hosting an evening panel session looking at issues related to international digitisation. The evening will draw on the experiences of projects in the area and will also involve discussion to inform future directions.
The event is open to all. The evening will be followed by a wine reception for all attendees.
JISC and the NEH are grateful to the Centre for Computing in the Humanities at King’s College London for hosting the event.
Location: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/about/campuses/strand-det.html