Digital convergence @ the

Australian War Memorial

K e y n o t e f o r A L I A ,I n f o r m a t i o n O n l i n e

2 0 J a n u a r y 2 0 0 9

Me

Facebook: Mal Booth

del.icio.us: malbooth

Blog: frommelbin.blogspot.com

Email: mal.booth@gmail.com

Flickr: malbooth(Sorry, but I am going to be provocative.)

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It is my ongoing belief that our users will soon get bored with

conversations and catalogue records.

They want the stuff. They expect it to be

online. Now.

And preferably for free.

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Why and what we digitiseWHY:

Increase & broaden access (remote &

24/7)Fragile, valuable &/or unique materials

To Support research, education, exhibitionfuture use or re-use

Promotion of collections

RelationshipsPreservation of at-

risk collections

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WHAT:Popular collectionsFragile & unique materialat-risk collectionssignificant prioritieswhat we have the right to digitisecollections related to collaborative relationships

Unit War Diaries - 1,549,781 ppRolls & lists - 20,857Other records - 508,846Records scanned on demand - 340,946 ppPhotos, art & relics - c300,000Sound - 1,707 titles or 2,046 hours

Digitisation

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Enterprise Content Management: management, search & web facilities for

digital assets and services

• Extensive digital asset management features

• Excellent electronic document & record management

• Intuitive web content management features

• Facilitate simple and complex workflow processes

• Extensive & Federated searching constructs

• Scaleable

• Compliant with all government recordkeeping requirements & emerging digital preservation standards

• Integrate easily with existing systems

• Simple to administer in terms of security, auditing & storage management

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Social media and the Memorial

A major priority for the Memorial for 2008-2011 is to:

Enhance online access through use of emerging web technologies and improved web content.

Each section had the following statement in its business plan for 2008-2009:

Appropriate team members identified and actively engaged in the development of the Memorial's website and in opportunities for collaboration and community

engagement, including Web 2.0 activities such as blogs, wikis, Flickr, Facebook and YouTube...

implemented as appropriate.

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The Digital Domain

I believe that the digital domain is an extra dimension that should be fully integrated to our work. It is our responsibility to be there. It should not be seen as the exclusive domain of strange-looking people who live only in Second Life and spend too much time Twittering about rubbish.

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Our digital footprint

Collaborationmulti-media

social-networking “muddy footprints?”

learning &networking

learning

subs & podcastsPre-publishing

Community engagement

promotion

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commons

mobile platforms

Librarianship in the Digital Age?

From This

Collect

Organise

Archive

Disseminate

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To This?

Develop

Organise

Manage

Disseminate

Imagine & Create

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A Stream of Digital ConsciousnessWe need clever imaginative risk-taking people who don’t know the rulesCopyright: the tail that wags the dog?Don’t over-analyse Don’t obsess about metadataLearn by doing (forget doing a course)Do it yourself or build lasting partnershipsManagers: get involved & compromiseDon’t try to replicate analogue processesDon’t put revenue generation up frontplay with Flickr, Flickr Uploadr & iTunesIs what we do really that hard?Position yourself to be an innovator

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Seen recently on Facebook Someone else: So many research methods to choose from so little time. Can I just go back to worrying about which metadata standard I was going to use?

Perian: why don't you research the process of metadata selection... *runs*Someone else: actually that's not far off the mark - but the question is *how* to do it.Perian: get a committee. Talk about it for 10+ years. Publish. Watch a lot of people adopt it initially, then have it get dumped like a bad date. Listen to the howling and confusion that follows for the following 10 years. Rinse and repeat.

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VALA, Info Online, Brooklyn Museum

By experimenting & playing!

Reading blogs, D-Lib, First Monday, etc.

Some really good people & a cunning plan (not an MBA in sight)

picking a few “winners” & leading by example

Allowing people to create, engage & contribute

learning continually through participation

By understanding re-use and re-purposing

compromise (the 80:20 rule)‏Not leaving ICT (just) to IT-staff

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How we are doing it

start now! it is sometimes easier to seek forgiveness

than gain permission

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