Digital Preservation and Social Media Outreach
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Presentation given during the 17th Brazilian Conference of Archival Science in Rio de Janeiro, June 21 2012
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Digital Preservation and Social Media Outreach
- 1. The Year of Blogging Vigorously: Digital Preservation and Social Media Outreach 17th Brazilian Conference of Archival Science XVII Congresso Brasileiro de Arquivologia William G. LeFurgy June 2012 @blefurgy
- 2. STANDARD DISCLAIMER NOTICE These are my personal opinions only!
- 3. Archives and Other Cultural Heritage Institutions Are Concerned about the Future
- 4. The Very Nature of Information Has Changed Information Information was… is… Scarce All around us Expensive Cheap or free Shaped and controlled Shaped and controlled by by elites consumers and networks Designed for one-way, Designed for sharing, mass consumption participation and feedback Slow moving Immediate External to our worlds Embedded in our worlds
- 5. Challenge of Preserving Digital Information
- 6. The Library of the Not-Too-Distant Future From ALA: Confronting the Future Strategic Visions for the 21st Century Public Library Available at www.ala.org
- 8. “Traditional” Archival Work Positivist in approach: • The archivist is impartial • The archival record is objective, “merely” descriptive, an empirical fact • “Respect des fonds”: provenance is the ‘authentic’ and authoritative archival context ‘Archivist…’ Archives of Ontario http://www.archives.gov.on.ca/english/exhibits/archives/big/big_47a_photo_stacks.htm
- 9. Archive 2.0 • Neither archivist or user is neutral in relation to the archive • The archival context is not more authentic or authoritative • Participants are more knowledgeable than an archivist alone Archive 2.0 project makes the front --Joy Palmer, Archives Hub page, above the fold!, By billhd, on Flickr
- 10. It seems clear that cultural heritage institutions must…
- 11. Concepts about future users drive institutional anxiety
- 12. Today and tomorrow’s generations have grown up in a world designed around them… there is a basic expectation of being empowered to do what they want to do. Any aspect of life that doesn’t fit that model will be ignored. --Paraphrased from Nick Poole, UK Collections Trust
- 14. “With the heavy competition for attention from all forms of media, libraries must work to market their value and services as much as any organization.” --Survey of Voters, Cromaine District Library, Hartland, MI
- 16. It’s just unevenly distributed.
- 17. Web/social media are tools to help move into the future now.
- 18. “At the National Archives and Records Administration, social media tools have the potential to transform our agency and the way we serve our customers and American citizens... Social media tools will help us accomplish our mission as the nation's record keeper to preserve government records and make them more accessible to you.” --NARA website
- 19. Social Media Goals and How to Measure Them Goals Measures – Inform – Numbers – Engage – Trends – Influence – Mentions – Activate – Shares
- 21. Content is designed for social sharing • Create content that people want to share • Create content that will work well once shared
- 22. Why is content production important? People are consuming information in different ways. You need to keep up with them. Skimming Video Visual With the right content, you have the potential to reach more people. Social content Search engine optimized content
- 25. Audience
- 26. Audience 1: Information Professionals
- 27. Audience 2: Students, Researchers
- 28. Audience 3: The General Public Preserving Your Personal Digital Photos Bill LeFurgy Hosted by ALCTS, the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services
- 33. YouTube Wepreserve: Team Digital Preservation and the Arctic Archipelproject: Introduction Mountain Adventure LoC/NDIIPP: Why Digital Preservation is Important for You LOC/NDIIPP: Archiving Digital Photos
- 34. Twitter
- 35. Twitter Tweeps
- 36. Blogs
- 38. Measuring Results • Quantitative – Viewsunique visits – Subscribersfollowers – Frequency of retransmission • Qualitative – Who notices what – Testimonials – Engagement (comments, likes, guest bloggers)
- 39. NDIIPP Videos on YouTube
- 40. Top 5 Most Popular Blog Posts on The Signal • Four Easy Tips for Preserving your Digital Photographs • What Skills Does a Digital Archivist or Librarian Need? • Digital Preservation File Formats for Scanned Images • Mission Possible: Add Descriptions to Digital Photos • When I Go Away: Getting Your Digital Affairs in Order
- 41. U.S. National Archives Social Media Statistics Dashboard, June 2011 Summary
- 44. Qualitative Measures 1 • Blog mentioned on some high-traffic sites: – Huffingtonpost.com – Grammy.com – Federal Computer Week (noted as one of the “best in the federal blogosphere”) – Several appearances in daily count of “Top U.S. Government Links”
- 45. Qualitative Measures 2 • Blog mentioned on rich diversity of sites – Genealogy and family history – Art and museums – Theatrical – Photography – Estate planning – Public, academic and special libraries – State legislature – Many, many personal blogs
- 46. How do we improve what we do?
- 48. References 1 Slide 1: tendencias, by juanmarketing, on Flickr Slide 3: Confronting the Future: Strategic Directions for 21st Century Libraries; Digital archive services of the future; The Museum of the future is…; A National Archives of the Future; The Future of Archives in the digital Age Slide 4: Libraries 2020, Imagining the Library of the not too distant future Slide 5: Kid and floppy disk, by wlef70, on Flickr Slide 6: Confronting the Future: Strategic Directions for 21st Century Libraries Slide 7: Museums, Libraries, and 21st Century Skills Slide 8: Archivist, Archives of Ontario Slide 9: Archive 2.0 project makes the front page, above the fold!, by billhd, on Flickr; Archives 2.0: If We Build It, Will They Come? Slide 10: change, by busy.pochi, on Flickr Slide 11: Person of the year: Time Person of the Year: You, by David FraAz, on Flickr Slide 12: CIDOC2012 Keynote: Powering the Museum of Tomorrow Slide 13: Photostream, by Humber Hillman Car Club of NZ car club, on Flickr Slide 14: PowerPoint Presentation - Cromaine Library Slide 15: National Archives Hosts Forum on Communications, Technology, and Government November 4 Slide 16: The future is here, by madhavaji, on Flickr Slide 17: Social Commerce for the Cultural Sector Slide 18: Social Media and Web 2.0 at the National Archives Slide 20: engage can make it so, 1110111518, by cdedbdme, on Flickr Slide 21: Content Production and Your Communications Program Slide 22: Content Production and Your Communications Program Slide 23: Social Commerce for the Cultural Sector Slide 24: Brand building online Slide 25: Crowd, by James Criland, on Flickr
- 49. References 2 Slide 26: Internview with an SCAPEr, Open Planets Foundation on Twitter, theorycast 55 :: retro media exhibit @ UB, by inju , on Flickr Slide 27: Digital Natives Explore Digital Preservation, America’s Young Archivists: the K-12 Web Archiving Program, NYPL Labs on Twitter, Slide 28: Preserving Your Personal Digital Photos Slide 29: Preserving Your Personal Digital Photos Slide 30: Be aware of visibility, by edmiiance, on Flickr Slide 31: value proposition, by tantek, on Flickr Slide 32: This is the first rev of Conversation Prism (1.0). 3.0 is Now Available - www.theconversationprism.com, by b_d_solis, on Flickr Slide 33: Wepreserve: Team Digital Preservation and the Arctic Mountain Adventure; Archipelproject: Introduction; Why Digital Preservation is Important for You; Archiving Digital Photos Slide 34: NDIIPP on Twitter Slide 36: The Signal blog, The National Archives blog, Open Planets Foundation blog, Practical E-Records blog Slide 37: Leveraging Social Media and the Crowd for Digital Preservation Slide 41: Social Media Statistics Dashboard: June FY 2011 Summary Slide 42: Lenzr Stats April May 2011, by Roberrific, on Flickr Slide 43: 20110315-NodeXL-Twitter-pawcon, by Marc Smith, on Flickr Slide 46: TheFutureSign, by srqpix, on Flickr
Notas del editor
- I am very happy to be here. I am especially grateful for the kind assistance of Lucia in helping me be with you today. I want to talk with you about using social media to promote digital preservation. I’m going to draw on different sources from the cultural heritage sector, with a focus on archives, and also a bit from libraries and museums. All these sources are cited at the end of my slides. While there are some fundamental differences between these types of institutions, I believe the digital age is driving them closer together, particularly with regard to how they interact with users. All cultural heritage institutions also face a need to assert their relevance in an era of profound change in how people seek and use information. As well, libraries, archives and museums share a common concern for digital preservation. Each type of institution manages different kinds of content for different reasons, but they have the same challenge in keeping that content accessible and authentic over time. We need to raise public awareness about what is at stake for our culture in terms of preserving digital materials. The risk of loss is growing along with the volume and complexity of digital information, but there is still much work to do in making that risk clear to people.
- I work at the U.S. Library of Congress as part of the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation program. I manage our social media activities, and I like to think we do a good job. We maintain an active Facebook page and have much information on our website, digitalpreservation.gov. For the last year, we have been blogging vigorously. I’ll be talking a about this work and what we have accomplished. I also worked for a number of years at the U.S. National Archives, where I helped preserve electronic records. But today I’m taking a perspective beyond any one institution, and nothing I say here should be regarded as representing an official view or policy of my employer. I am offering only my personal opinions.
- Every archives, library and museum is concerned about the future. This slide shows the title of some recent reports, such as “The Future of Archives in a Digital Age.” Our world is in the midst of an information revolution that forces us to continually rethink how we meet our missions. The most significant aspect of this revolution is that it has led us to feel certain that the future will bring big challenges. And the scope of those changes is evolving so fast that it seems like we face a future that surely will transform everything we do.
- A big part of this is the fact that the nature of information has changed. The Pew Internet and American Life Project has looked into this change and this slide suggests how information has been transformed. Information used to be scarce, now it’s everywhere. It used to be controlled by an elite, now it’s in the hands of everyone. Information used to be designed for one-way use but now it’s designed for “sharing, participation and feedback.”
- Another way in which information has changed is that it has moved from paper and other analog formats to digital formats. This change has been sudden, dramatic and risky. Information on paper is stable and can last for a long time. We have centuries of experience working with paper, and we are good at keeping it in archives. Digital information is different. The technology is rapidly evolving. Some of us here know what a 5.25” floppy disk is; we might even still own some. But this child had no idea what the disk was and did not believe it had anything to do with computers at all. Every cultural heritage institution must accept some basic facts about digital content. First, institutions will be responsible for managing lots of data. Second, there is no simple way to preserve that data over time. And third, the best way to move ahead is to share information about digital preservation standards, policies and best practices and to collaborate on solutions.
- It seems clear that institutions will shift along several key dimensions of their operations. The American Library Association presented the model on this slide as a way to think about the strategic choices that libraries will have to make as they adapt to the needs of their communities. We can see some familiar issues here, such as a movement away from physical spaces to virtual experiences and shifting focus from working with individual users to working with many users as the same time. The bottom dimension is particularly interesting. It represents a shift away from libraries as a portal to information to serving what is called an archive. In other words, the idea is that libraries will start collecting and preserving unique materials that are relevant to their users, such as personal digital archives, neighborhood histories, as well as other unique multimedia sources. To my mind, that is an excellent way for libraries to connect in a meaningful way with users. I’d like to see archivists embrace the same approach.
- Here’s a slide from the IMLS report “Museums, Libraries and 21 st Century Skills” that presents some of the big changes that cultural heritage organizations face. The same sort of issues apply to archives as well. The change centers around how institutions work with users. Most institutions, for example, traditionally serve as centers of authority in delivering their content to users. In the new era, people expect less filtering of information. That’s not to say that users don’t continue to value the expertise of institutions and staff—they do. But users also want the ability to influence how information is presented, accessed and understood. A big part of this is a push for closer relationships between archival staff and users. As the slide says, institutions need to “focus on audience engagement, experiences.“
- This picture shows the traditional activity that archivists do. They work primarily with collections to make them ready for research. They focus on arranging, describing and understanding provenance. In the traditional model, users are expected to come through archivists to get to the content. This is how I was trained as an archivist and it’s a model that has worked well for generations. But it’s a model that is challenged by new ideas and new forces. Consider the concept of “Web 2.0.” The term is l oosely defined as “web-based services that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability and user-centered design. “ The concept has shaken the world of cultural heritage organizations.
- When we say “Archive 2.0” (or library 2.0 or museum 2.0) it means an approach that permits more direct access to collections and that regards users as equal partners in terms of determining to usefulness of those collections. It also means that institutions have to be more transparent and collaborative about what they collect and how they make it available, especially when it comes to digital content. People have clear expectations about the availability of digital information, and also expectations of freedom to use that information as they wish to make something new and to learn something new.
- So it’s clear that there is much pressure on archives and other institutions to change. There are competing ideas about what this change should look like, but there are some common themes, including: Institutions must work harder to understand the needs of their communities to build stronger relationships. Institutions should be less inward-looking and think about their boundaries in more porous ways. Staff need expertise to communicate directly with diverse users and facilitate discussions focusing on things the community cares about. It is essential to be flexible, responsive and agile in embracing new technologies and new ways of working. And, perhaps the biggest concern of all, cultural heritage institutions face a demand to justify their relevance in modern terms to modern audiences.
- A great deal of the pressure on institutions comes from the community they serve. In a wired world where teenagers now have more information at their fingertips than a U.S. president did 20 years ago, users have transformed from passive recipients to demanding consumers. This isn’t a new story—Time magazine declared “You” (I guess that’s everybody) as the person of the year in 2007 because “You control the information age.” But there can be no doubt that people—particularly younger people—have new expectations about how to use information and how to value the institutions that provide information. This means we have to discuss cultural heritage—and the work of cultural heritage organizations--in a way that fits into how people live their lives, and that makes sense as part of their personal story. As Nick Poole from the UK Collections Trust says, “Meeting the needs of future audiences demands new technologies and new ways of thinking.”
- Nick Poole really gets to the heart of the matter with this quote. [Read it] We especially need to mind the “be ignored” part. The is plenty of competition for people’s attention, commitment and passion. Even the notion of cultural heritage and who collects it is up for grabs.
- Here’s an example of what is called “an archive” that was put together on Flickr by fans of classic cars in New Zealand. These people consider this to be culture heritage information, even though no formally trained archivist was involved. There are many examples of this. It’s wonderful, but it also shows the competition for community attention , participation and commitment that institutions face.
- The fact that this competition exists comes as no surprise to cultural heritage organizations. Here’s a quote from a public library report. [read it] Archives of all types need to think about what the future holds in terms of expanded engagement with the community, particularly in connection with social media tools.
- The U.S. National Archives, for example, recently hosted a “Forum on Communications, Technology, and Government,” during which a panel explored “new opportunities and ideas for social media affecting the private, government, and public sectors and the average citizen.” The National Archives clearly sees its future as closely involved with social media. The agency made this point clearly with this suggested Facebook post. [read it] I find it fascinating that the agency drew such as sharp contrast to its “focus on the past” by saying they have a “focus on the future” “for a change.” That’s a big message packed into a few words.
- I agree with all of these ideas about the future. There’s just one thing—the future is here right now. We don’t have the luxury of spending much time contemplating future audiences or thinking up future strategies for archives. There are demands that we undertake change now. The risk in waiting is that the larger culture will pass us by as a relic from the pre-wired world. Users are expecting relevant aspects of culture to come to them and to resonate meet their needs. I know that you have heard similar messages before. It’s fair to say that most archivists and other information professionals know that we need to embrace technology to engage with users in novel ways. And there are some great efforts around the world to do that using social media and other technology. William Gibson famously said “The future is already here--it’s just unevenly distributed.” And that’s true for archives—some are actively embracing the future. I want to talk with you today about some ideas for using social media to promote digital preservation. These are still early days for archives and libraries in using these tools, but I think some principles are emerging.
- Social media is not an end to itself. It is a means to help institutions interact with and build communities. Unless they are used correctly, they won’t help much. If an institution wants to change and is looking to social media there are some questions to answer. What should a social media strategy consider? Which specific tools can be used? How to measure the usefulness of those tools? Let me talk a little about about these topics.
- A formal social media strategy rare at this point for most archives. An exception is the U.S. National Archives, which is explicit about its strategy and what it hopes to accomplish. This quote from the National Archives website touches on important topics, including meeting customer expectations, and pursuing opportunities for participation and collaboration. [read it] I like the fact that use of social media is clearly tied to accomplishing the agency mission.
- This slide shows the basics of a social media strategy. There are four goals and four ways to measure success. The goals focus on an institution connecting with its audience. At the most basic level, you want people to know what your mission is and why its important. Beyond that, you hope to engage with people on topics in which they have a direct interest. “ Engage” means that people respond to what we say. The clearest indication of that are things like comments on our blog or other direct feedback. The “Influence” and “activate” goals mean that what we do helps people learn and causes them to expand their awareness. In the case of digital preservation, this means helping people understand what is at stake in preserving digital information. Measures are important to understand how effective the strategy is in terms of audience, reach and impact. There are a different ways to think about measurements, which include “hard” metrics, like numbers of viewers or followers, as well as “soft” indicators such as mentions by influential people. I’ll go into more detail about this later on.
- Engagement can make it so—not only for successful Star Trek missions but also for promoting digital preservation. Communication and engagement should be heart of what preserving institutions are all about. It’s necessary to engage with many different people in different communities. You have to collect comments, propose ideas, accept feedback and facilitate an ongoing conversation among a diverse set of people with different priorities and perspectives. The ultimate goal should be for the larger community to support your mission to preserve digital content and to make it available on an ongoing basis. One approach is to share information about digital standards and best practices. Many people besides information professionals are interested in the “how to” aspect and eager to learn about the skills, tools and infrastructures needed to bring digital content under stewardship. It is also crucial to raise awareness among the general public about what is at stake for our collective digital heritage. The public has long valued the role of archives in keeping traditional materials, but the idea of preserving digital content is new. Very new, in fact. Engaging with the public has a related purpose: many people are looking for advice for keeping their own growing collections of digital photographs and other personal materials. This offers a unique and potentially very effective way for archives to connect their preservation mission with the personal concerns of citizens.
- The key to effective public engagement is a social media content production strategy. I really like how Kate Brodock sums up such a strategy in two simple ways: 1) Create content that people want to read and to share; and 2) Create content that will work well after its shared. Content is defined in a broad sense—it includes writing such as blog posts, tweets and Facebook posts. It also includes all the other social media information archives generate and distribute, including videos, podcasts, as well as presentations and reports. The idea is that you should design content to lose control of it, have others repost it, see it spread on social networks. The more it spreads the further it reaches. Sharable in this context means content that is interesting, is clear and addresses issues that people care about.
- Here’s a slide from Kate Brodock’s presentation. It makes the point that people now have different approaches to viewing information, and that content should be crafted with that in mind. We’ve all heard about how the internet causes people to skim information. Skimming is a fact of life these days, and that means we need headlines that grab attention and messages that people care about. It also means communicating without text. Videos and graphics are important to tell the right story. Both also need to have good production values; the typical internet user has little patience for cluttered images or long, dull videos. And, again, goal is to reach as many people as possible.
- This graphic shows another way of thinking about a social media content production strategy. The picture is from Jim Richardson’s presentation on “Social Commerce for the Cultural Sector” and it shows what people are looking for on the internet. What’s important here is that content should meet four values—it should be educational, social, and entertaining, plus it should lend itself to some kind of emotional reaction or connection with the viewer. If we want to connect with people, we have to adopt this style. Personally, I suspect that this is one of the hardest things about social media for archives. Many archivists are used to a very serious approach to their work and may not take social media as seriously.
- Also related to the concept of “Social Commerce for the Cultural Sector” is the idea of “brand.” A brand is what a company or institution means to people in terms of personal expectations. Boiled down to its essence, a brand makes people feel a certain way about something. Brands are usually associated with business, but the concept applies equally well to cultural heritage institutions. People usually already have positive feelings about archives, an we can leverage that to build audiences an promote the value of preserving digital cultural heritage.
- The question of audiences for digital preservation is important. I’d say there are three principal audiences. Information Professionals Students, Researchers General Public
- As I mentioned earlier, details about standards, tools and best practices are popular among information professionals. Any institution doing digital preservation should actively discuss that work using social media. There is an active community exchanging information about digital preservation. This slide shows some of that, including a person working the European Open Planets Foundation and some sample tweets from that group. The social media community is also very receptive to questions, which is another avenue for an institution to extend its reach, share information, and acquire new knowledge about digital preservation.
- Students and researchers are the most traditional audiences for many cultural heritage organizations. Even so, there is still much to be done in terms of engaging with them about digital preservation. Teachers tend to be interested in digital preservation in the context of learning about modern culture. The Library of Congress does quite a bit of outreach in connection with schools. We at NDIIPP have produced YouTube videos on this topic, including “Digital Natives Explore Digital Preservation” and “America’s Young Archivists.” Screen shots from both videos are on this slide. Both provide interesting insights into how children think about issues relating to digital preservation, particularly the types of materials they think are worth collecting and preserving. The term “researcher” has always been a bit vague, and it certainly can apply to a broad cross section of users today. Institutions also have much to gain by engaging with users about how to improve collections, as well as access to them.
- Members of the public are also interested in personal digital archiving. We at the Library of Congress have generated extensive guidance for personal digital archiving, and that information is by far the most popular on all our social media platforms. Here’s an example: I presented an online webinar sponsored by the American Library Association on preserving personal digital photographs. This presentation was part of Preservation Week, held this past April. I talked about some simple steps people could take to select, organize, describe and preserve there personal collections. We actively promoted the webinar through our social media channels and were pleased with how the message moved out among different groups. We ended up with well over 500 people listening in from around the country. I like to think that at least some of those people came away with new or better ideas about how important digital preservation is, both for themselves and for our culture.
- My own view is that providing advice and assistance with personal digital archiving is just the approach that cultural heritage organizations need to reach and to influence the larger community. This kind of communication is a great opportunity for archives. One reason is professional: personal digital content will come into archival collections, and it’s in our professional interest to have it well organized before it shows up on our doorsteps. The best way to do this is to provide broad-based digital preservation outreach. Another reason is that helping people manage their digital photographs builds community support. The need for personal digital archiving advice is going to keep growing and many, many people are going to want it. I firmly believe that archivists are the right people to give this advice.
- Once an institution has identified the audiences for its social media communication, the next step is to think about how that communication can get maximum visibility. This comes back to a point I made earlier: you must create content that your audience wants. This principle applies to all varieties of communication, and even goes beyond social media. You will want to have some idea where your audience looks for information and engagement. A worthy investment of time is to identify specific social media authors, both individuals or institutions. Observing their patterns of communication can help you refine your practices, including how to push information out in a way that audiences are likely to notice. It’s also important to find out how best to cross-promote information among different channels. Blog posts are usually well-promoted on Twitter, and YouTube videos can be embedded on Facebook pages. People are accustomed to looking for information in different places, and the steady flow of social media information means that users will need multiple chances to view content.
- Advertisers and economists often talk about a concept known as “The Value Proposition.” It basically means: why should anyone care about what your institution has to offer? What makes your product, service, or message valuable? In other words, why should someone care archives or about digital preservation? There are levels of value, the most basic of which is fleeting attention: does your Tweet, blog post or video even look remotely interesting? Will I pause even for a second when I see the title? Will I click over to investigate further? If I do, will I care enough to read (or watch) all you that have to say? We aim for this at a minimum. But remember the higher level goals for social media communication. This depends on reaching people on a deeper emotional level .What we really want from people is to care so much that they will engage (leave a comment, say), or be influenced (by thinking, perhaps, something like “digital preservation really is important.”). Ultimately we would love for people to be activated and do something like writing their own blog post about digital preservation or going to a local archives or library and asking for more information.
- This brings us to the point of thinking about all the various social media channels. As this diagram shows, there are many choices. There are actually more than this graphic indicates, because it is a couple of years old. But it’s useful as a visual representation of the categories that make up the Social Media landscape. Another thing I like about this diagram is that is meant to show how social media tools help support conversation, learning and sharing within communities. I’m just going to talk here about three specific social media channels that I have direct experience with.
- The first is YouTube. NDIIPP has produced a dozen or so short videos for YouTube with the intent to promote digital preservation. Two examples are on this slide: “Why Digital Preservation is important to You,” and “Preserving Digital Photographs.” Both are aimed at a general audience and are meant to convey practical information under the Library of Congress brand. DigitalPreservationEurope has put out an excellent video series modeled on children’s cartoon shows. The videos feature the adventure of Digiman as he fights evil characters representing threats to digital content. These videos have been extremely popular and are quite effective. The Archipel project in Belgium has also put out a series of great videos that present digital preservation issues in an entertaining and informative manner. The project does well in offering information geared to different audiences, with videos that are aimed at the public and other videos that discuss technical details of interest to digital preservation practitioners.
- Twitter is a very compelling way for a cultural heritage institution to distribute and consume information. NDIIPP is active on Twitter, and I’m pleased to say that we have over 10,000 followers. We’ve sent out over 2,200 individual Tweets about topics such as digital preservation partnerships, new tools the we have developed and meetings and events that we host. We also distribute information about what other institutions are doing around the world. In addition, we publicize important meetings (such as this one—its the tweet in the middle) as well as other topics that people care deeply about, including jobs and professional educational opportunities.
- My personal network on Twitter runs into the thousands, but I’ve listed just a selection of people and places that I follow by way of example on this slide. Twitter is my personal favorite channel for keeping up with news and information from the people and institutions involved with digital preservation. The depth and variety of information available is awe-inspiring. There’s everything from links to major initiatives, to new tools, to sessions at professional conferences.
- Blogs are a bit different than other social media platforms in that it’s possible to vary the amount of information provided. At the Library of Congress NDIIPP program, we push out much information through our blog, The Signal, which is shown on this slide. There are also many other worthwhile blogs that promote digital preservation in the context of cultural heritage organizations. I’ve listed 3 others here from the UK National Archives and the European Open Planets Foundation, as well as Chris Prom’s personal blog, which is especially strong in reviewing a variety of tools and services for archives.
- Many institutions use multiple social media tools. This is a good strategy because it allows for cross channel communication and broadens the reach of information that is distributed. An excellent example of using social media to promote digital preservation is the State Archives and State Library of North Carolina, which have a joint project to engage citizens using a blog, twitter and Flickr. This project is also an great example of connecting the personal concerns of individuals to the larger societal need for increased attention to digital preservation. These blog and twitter streams often talk about issues related to keeping digital photographs and other personal materials, which helps people become more aware of the larger cultural concern for preserving digital content.
- Once you have undertaken a social media strategy, it’s important to keep track of how effective it is. You will want to know some basic numbers or quantitative measures. It’s possible to get some detailed statistics for all kinds of measures; you will have to decide which kinds of measures make the most sense for your purposes. Another way to gage results is through soft or qualitative measures. These are measures that do not involve numbers—they include noting if influential people or publications take note of your efforts, comments and other engagements from users, and testimonials about how others judge your effort.
- Here is one example of some quantitative measures of views on YouTube of our Library of Congress digital preservation videos. This graphic quickly gives details about which videos are most popular. In this case “Why Digital Preservation is Important for You” is by far the most popular. In assessing the kinds of future videos we might make, this kind of data is significant. It’s important to remember that statistics don’t tell the whole story. For our videos, it’s worth noting that views directly from our website are not included in this graph. The videos are also, in some cases, reposted by others. Even in cases where all the viewership data is aggregated, it’s possible that a video with less total exposure actually had more impact that those with more views.
- Here are the top 5 blog posts from the NDIIPP blog The Signal over the past year, ranked by total views. You’ll note that topics relating to personal digital archiving predominate. We’re pleased with the reach of these messages, as it’s clear that they have gone well beyond the archives and library community and out to the general public. This is evidence for our original hypothesis that such message would have broad appeal. We don’t as yet know if the other part of our assumption is true– that getting people engaged on personal digital archiving will elevate overall public awareness about digital preservation. But, at the least, it’s a positive indication for our strategy at this point.
- Here’s an example of more detailed statistics. This slide shows the social media numbers reported by the U.S. National Archives for June of last year. This is only part of what the Archives collects to gage the impact of their social media efforts. An institution will aggregate such numbers to show trends in terms of visitors, followers, and topics of interest.
- This slide shows what such an aggregation of social media statistics could look like for an archives. The graph also shows a variety of other measures, including traffic sources, average time on the site, and geographic distribution of visitors. This tool is Google Analytics, but there are others available as well.
- It’s possible to do all kinds of interesting graphical visualizations for social media activities. This slide shows an example of a Node XL graph that shows the interconnections among Twitter users who mentioned a specific term. The larger the node icon, the more influential the source. Using a visualization like this is optional. But it is an potentially valuable method for understanding how well a specific message or topic moves through social networks.
- Qualitative measures are just as important as numbers and graphs. This slide shows some examples of qualitative measure for my Library of Congress blog. I note on the slide that our blog posts were mentioned by some influential websites, including the Huffington Post and Grammy.com, the home of the Grammy music awards. The blog also was selected as one of the best in the US federal government, which is important to us.
- Here are some additional examples of qualitative measures for our blog. We made an effort to learn about the diversity of websites that republished our posts or otherwise mentioned us. As you can see, the reach is extensive in terms of different domains and areas of interest. I’m especially glad to see that lots of personal bloggers—people blogging on their own rather than for an institution—mentioned us. Again, that shows we have making some connection outside of our practitioner community, and hopefully raising awareness about digital preservation. The reach was diverse in terms of geography as well. Most websites that mentioned us were in North America or Europe, but we showed up in many other countries around the world.
- One of the major reasons an archives will want to collect qualitative and quantitative measures is analyze it’s strategy and make it better. It is too soon to know exactly how effectively cultural heritage institutions can make use of social media. We need to keep gathering and analyzing data. Perhaps archives and the rest of the cultural heritage sector needs to draw from the experience of commercial advertisers and use of focus groups, opinion surveys and other methods to understand how to refine our message and engage with our communities. I do believe that this engagement is critical. We need the active interest and support of many people if we hope to have a sustainable basis for archives and for preserving our digital heritage.
- Thank you for your attention.