Transcript www.ukad.org
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License .
Spotlight on the Digital
Providing services and tools to maximise discovery of institutions’ digital collections
Etienne
Spotlight on the Digital #spotlight2
A treasure chest at the bottom of the sea
The Spotlight project found that digitised collections are like a treasure chest at the bottom of the sea: it’s there but not many people can find it.
Spotlight on the Digital #spotlight2 Databases, library catalogues
Surfacing the treasure chest
-
Survey of Academics 2012
~ 40% …. begin their research processes at a general purpose search engine on the internet or world wide web ~ one-third … begin their research at a specific electronic research resource ~ less than 15% … start with an online library catalogue or a national or international catalogue or database only a very few (2%) reported starting their research with a visit to the library building Personal recommendations Survey of Academics 2012, Ithaka S+R, Jisc, RLUK, p21 http://repository.jisc.ac.uk/5209/1/UK_Survey_of_Academics_2012_FINAL.pdf
Spotlight literature review of discovery behaviours http://bit.ly/Spotlight_behaviours/ 3
Spotlight on the Digital #spotlight2
Collection Level
“Some collections become lost to the web over time (40 out of 217 tested, representing over £2m public investment). Explanations range from poor exposure to search engines, to the loss of web access to the content itself, to relocation elsewhere (within other local collections or aggregation services).”
Item Level
“While content is typically digitised under the umbrella of a collection, such groupings are not directly relevant to user behaviours, where users require discrete items to be discoverable (almost 50% of items were not discoverable on Google search results by item name or title).”
Spotlight on the Digital #spotlight2
Solutions
1. Institutional capacity building 2. Role of aggregations 3. Technology foresight group 4. Reliable reference service 5. Reusable software tools 6. Strategic content promotion 7. Open content licensing http://repository.jisc.ac.uk/5569/1/JISC_REPORT_spotlight_on_digital_WEB.pdf
Spotlight on the Digital #spotlight2
Spotlight on the digital – Phase 2
Providing services and tools to maximise discovery of institutions’ digital collections over time
Audience: librarians, information professionals, archivists, e-resource managers, academics responsible for creation and management of digital collections 1: Provide national training and advice services to support discoverability good practice ~ Jisc Digital Media 2: Develop tools to facilitate discoverability of digital collections ~ Jisc services and external stakeholders 3: Optimise Jisc resource discovery services to increase visibility of digital collections ~ Copac, Archives Hub 4 Provide horizon scanning on rapidly changing technology in resource discovery ~ Jisc discovery services , Jisc Digital Media, external stakeholders
Spotlight on the Digital #spotlight2
Make your digital resources easier to discover
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/guides/make-your-digital-resources-easier-to-discover
Spotlight on the Digital Phase 2
Targeting advice and training to user needs
8
Spotlight on the Digital Phase 2
Targeting advice and training to user needs
9 Skills Knowledge
8 2 0 6 4 16 14 12 10 Spotlight on the Digital #spotlight2
Knowledge and skills by topic
Spotlight on the Digital #spotlight2 £ Occasional £ Continuous ££ Occasional ££ Continuous Structure your URLs Understand relevancy ranking Get your page titles correct Get your page descriptions correct Use sitemaps effectively Help search engines index your content Use 'alt' texts to describe images Add structured metadata to your pages using schema.org
Create clear, simple item descriptions Remove registration or authentication barriers for your audiences Structure your page with good heading tags Keep your search engine optimisation (SEO) knowledge up to date Identify and use popular web services Use hashtags effectively Develop your own social network presence Use crowdsourcing to engage users Create a twitter bot to regularly tweet collection items or links Make it easy for others to share your content Creating engaging blog posts License your content correctly to enable suitable reuse Find aggregated catalogues your audiences use Make use of established cataloguing standards Use common data formats for metadata Publish metadata describing digitised resources under an extremely permissive license such as CC0 The Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting Get your resources listed on library discovery indexes Improve processes for exporting content Make use of Wikimedia Commons Create resource packages for teachers Provide API’s to enhance access to your collection Collaborate with the users of your collection Work with suitable partners Target websites and services your audience use Host a wikipedia edit-a-thon Carry out regular user testing Get the best from your web analytics Know your audience, speak to them Learn to use log files Provide clear guidance on citing your content Ensure your systems work with reference management software (e.g. Zotero) Give your internal staff clear roles £ £ £ ££ ££ ££ ££ ££ ££ ££ ££ ££ ££ ££ ££ ££ ££ ££ ££ ££ £££ Occasional £££ £££* £££ £££ £££ £££ £££ £££ Continuous £££ £££ £££ £££ £££ £££ £££ ££££ Occasional ££££ ££££ ££££ Continuous £££££ Occasional £££££ Continuous ££££ ££££ £££££ £££££ £££££
Spotlight on the Digital #spotlight2
Using social media – a case study
Identify and use popular web services
Make it easy for others to share your content
Actions
Develop your own social network presence
Use crowdsourcing to engage users
Spotlight on the Digital #spotlight2
Identify and use popular web services
Republishing content to popular web services, such as flickr or youtube, can help you reach a wider audience.
Consider the size and nature of your audience The suitability of the platform for your content Right and licensing supported by the service Rights and licensing issues surrounding your content Skills Programming skills Expertise in the subject matter or curation experience Knowledge of rights and licensing ££ - continuous investment required
Spotlight on the Digital #spotlight2
Develop your own social network presence
Create a presence for your digital collection on a social network site such as Facebook or Twitter.
Pick a network that helps you reach the right population and demographics for your collection Skills Expertise of social media management Rights and licensing of content on sites such as facebook Rights and licensing supported by the service ££ - continuous investment required
Spotlight on the Digital #spotlight2
Use crowdsourcing to engage users
Crowdsourcing means to gather contributions from a large community in order to achieve a particular goal. While the primary goal of crowdsourcing activities might not be to increase visibility of a collection, this is a common side-effect.
Building a crowdsourcing platform from scratch could be a significant undertaking, however many existing platforms are available that you might find are suitable. Examples include Zooniverse and HistoryPin Skills Expertise of community management Expertise in the subject matter or curation experience ££££ - continuous investment required
Spotlight on the Digital #spotlight2
Use hashtags effectively
Hashtags are used to identify postings on social media related to particular subjects.
Establishing a hashtag for a collection can help track conversations about your collection across social networks It can draw together all of your social media activities, beyond its use on twitter And empower users to contribute to the conversation by using the hashtag Skills Expertise of social media management £ - continuous investment required
Spotlight on the Digital #spotlight2
Create a twitter bot to regularly tweet collection items or links
A ‘Twitter bot’ is a piece of software that posts to twitter automatically.
There are a large number of different types of Twitter bots - some simply post information, while others respond in some way to prompts (usually tweets from other users).
Regularly posting to Twitter can help promote your digital collection (through Twitter followers and Retweets by Twitter users) And expose aspects of the collection that might otherwise go unseen Skills Expertise in the subject matter or curation experience Programming skills Experience of working with APIs Knowledge of rights and licensing ££ - occasional investment required
Spotlight on the Digital #spotlight2
Make it easy for others to share your content
The easier you make it for others to share or ‘like’ your digital collection, the more you’ll increase its discoverability.
Include a ‘share’ buttons for the most popular social networks Consider what platforms are most suited to your content - Pinterest for images for example Consider adding a citation function Skills Expertise of web development £ - Occasional investment required
Spotlight on the Digital #spotlight2
Create engaging blog posts
Blogs gives you space to explore items in your collection in more detail for users.
A blog post can be used to highlight a particular element of your collection, adding opinion, contextual information or other engaging content To publicise a collection or a theme within a collection Skills Expertise in the subject matter or curation experience ££ - Continuous investment required
Spotlight on the Digital #spotlight2
Next steps
Developing a tool to promote item level discoverability Enhance online guide National Training Jisc will offer Discovery scholarships to a small number of • • institutions to help shape the training offer.
Jisc will Award £5000 per participating institution Provide training, guidance and advice to institutions on how to maximise discovery of their resources • • • Institutions will: Work with Jisc on piloting the training offer Provide input into the curriculum and delivery of the training Produce a case study at the end of the pilot Keep an eye on the Jisc content blog http://bit.ly/1FbcCap
Spotlight on the Digital #spotlight2
Thank you
Karen Colbron, Jisc Digital content manager [email protected]
@karencolbron #spotlight2
Spotlight on the Digital #spotlight2
Credits
Computer cables Etienne Treasure chest Tom Pralson Improving discoverability of digitised collections Weighing scales Spello Piggybank 401(K) 2014 Help button Eva the weaver