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Breaking barriers without breaking the bank Amanda Hill Hillbraith Ltd. [Deseronto Archives]

Breaking barriers without breaking the bank

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Presentation on social media in a small archives given at the Manitoba Libraries Conference, May 2012

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  • 1. Breaking barriers without breaking the bank Amanda HillHillbraith Ltd. [Deseronto Archives]

2. A bit of context 3. Deseronto Population: 1,900 First settled by Mohawks in 1784 Became a major timber-processing centre in late19th century Site of Royal Flying Corps pilot training airfields inWWI 4. Deseronto Public Library Began life as the Deseronto MechanicsInstitute in 1885 Became Public Library in 1896 Has been collecting/keeping records,photographs etc. for many years 5. 1896 Library Rules8. No one shall be permitted to take books fromthe shelves except the Librarian and assistantand members of the Board of Management.9. Noise, audible conversation, or disorderlyconduct in the Library and Reading Room isstrictly prohibited. 6. Problems with first librarian Arthur P. Brown, librarian 1891-1915The question of refusal on part of the Librarian to issue certain books to various individualswas raised by the Secretary who took the ground that we should not have books in theLibrary at all about which there was any reasonable doubt. Several books were namedamong which were the following:-The Lady of Quality [A Lady of Quality by Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1896]Maggie [by Stephen Crane, 1893]Tess of Duberville [Tess of the dUrbervilles by Thomas Hardy, 1891]On the Sunny Shore [by Henryk Sienkiewicz, 1897]It was moved by Mr. Costigan, seconded by Mr. Copland that we expunge these booksentirely.The Librarian was instructed that outside of these books he was hereafter to refuse noperson provided the books desired were in the Library.Deseronto Public Library Board Minutes, December 13, 1898 7. Deseronto Archives Formally established by 1997 by-law Total annual budget: $11,000 Occupies a corner of the Library Part-time archivist 8. IT situation in 2007 Approximately 1997 9. IT situation in 2007 Town website (no access for updating by archivesstaff) Limited IT support Archives PC attached to Deseronto PublicLibrarys network & Internet Network drive, backed up No email account for Archives 10. Collection rich in images Archives poor in resources Completely lacking any sort of online presence 11. Solution Use free (or nearly-free) online tools to: act as the Archives public face share images and news about the materials in thecollection Use those tools to promote the work of theArchives and raise funds for furtherdevelopment of programs 12. Initial online steps for DeserontoArchives Sep 2007:Gmail & Google Calendar account forArchives Oct 2007: Blog set up $47.99 Jan 2008: Flickr account opened Jul 2008: Moved to Pro Flickr account Jan 2009: Began using Twitter 13. Whistle-stop tour 14. Funding for digitization 2009: Town of Deseronto contributed $4,000for a digitization project Allowed for rapid addition of new content toFlickr 15. Outreach not just online Articles in bi-monthly town newsletter,delivered to every home Annual Heritage Day/Family Day competitionin conjunction with Deseronto Public School Attendance at Town events 16. Pushing the boundaries going beyond us telling them Seeking content from users that we couldntmeet locally 17. User-generated content? Grant of $16,000 from Ontarios Museums andTechnology Fund, 2010, with funding of$4,000 from the Town of Deseronto Used to build and generate content for a newwebsite: About Deseronto:http://aboutdeseronto.omeka.net/ 18. AbsencePhysicaldistancefrom hometownFeelings ofaffection forhome townwith apologies to Jessica Hagy of Indexedhttp://thisisindexed.com 19. Low-cost, sustainable approach Just launching a betaversion of their hosted service in April 2010 20. Omeka.net plans 21. Disadvantages Initially, Omeka.net did not offer an option forusers to upload materials direct Which had been the whole point of AboutDeseronto Hard to get people to engage Very small population, which doesnt help! 22. New direction Oral histories Archives Board members helped to identifypotential interviewees 10 interviews conducted during the course of theproject Big learning curve technology, technique 23. Christmas in the funeral home 24. About Deseronto Partial success Contribute option now available, but notreally being used! 25. Facebook Set up a Facebook account a year ago(reluctantly) for the Archives to help promoteDoors Open through an event page An unexpected success 26. How do we measure success? 27. Basic usage statistics 1,300 images on Flickr 57 images with comments 200 images favorited Over 200,000 views 96 blog posts, 8 pages 99 comments 502 tweets 279 followers 28. Impact Comments and notes from users Collaboration with users New accessions virtual, digital and tangible New creative works Funding for new projects Support for our work 29. Grateful users 30. Flickr comments 31. Flickr comments 32. Flickr notes 33. User-generated notes 34. User-generated notes 35. Virtual collections 36. Virtual collections 37. New digital materials WWI Royal Flying Corps camps Camp Mohawk images on Flickr and blog Email from son of one of the flight instructorsat Camp Mohawk, mentioning a photographalbum 38. Postscript 39. A spur for creativity A 15-year-old railway enthusiast 40. Advantages for Deseronto Walking tour Display panels for Doors Open in 2011 41. Walking tour 42. Financial impact $4,000 in 2009 for digitisation from Town ofDeseronto $20,000 received in 2010 for AboutDeseronto Omeka site 75% from Ontario Ministry of Culture 25% from Town of Deseronto 43. Facebook An unexpected success (150 friends to date) More connections with local people than throughTwitter More help with identifying people/places/things Many more user-contributed photos, comments Lesson learnt: go to where your audience is! 44. Support for our work Social media audiences can be called upon intimes of need A lot of support on Facebook for the archives inthe light of cuts to the National ArchivalDevelopment Program in recent weeks 45. Disadvantages? 46. Things to consider Security/portability of images and metadatafrom external web services Have backup copies Possibility of vandalism/inappropriate content Vigilance important (incidence negligible so far) 47. In summary Disadvantages heavily outweighed by advantages Try different things, see what works for your particular context See what other people are doing and shamelessly steal and copyideas Make your service as noticeable and available as possible You DONT need a big budget, a huge amount of time or a lot of ITsupport to have a respectable online presence a significant impact on the world outside your walls 48. Final glimpses, final thoughtYou may never know what results come of your action, but if youdo nothing there willbe no result.Mahatma GandhiHMR1-09-41 "C.P.R. Station. Wpg.HMR1-09-40 "Wpg Armories 1884. Harry in Motor 1907 49. Contact details [email protected] http://deserontoarchives.wordpress.com http://www.flickr.com/photos/deserontoarchives/ http://www.facebook.com/deseronto.archives http://aboutdeseronto.omeka.net @DeserontoArch on Twitter