This document summarizes the services of OurDigitalWorld (ODW), a nonprofit that provides digitization and online engagement tools to help organizations connect their communities with digital collections. ODW offers consultation, project management training, and tools like the VITA toolkit to create and manage digital collections. Over 250 organizations partner with ODW to provide access to millions of digitized items and leverage the platform for community engagement and networking opportunities.

1. Waterloo
June 2014

2. About OurDigitalWorld
About VITA
Community Connections
Collaboration
Management
Networked

3. •We’re a not-for-profit that has been working on local, regional and
provincially scaled digitization projects since 2005
•We develop tools and services that connect people and their
communities around digital stories and objects in a sustainable
manner
•Platform for capacity-building and community engagement
•Knowledge base for sharing expertise and best practices
About ODW

4. •Consultation
•Resources (including copyright)
•Project management training
•Data migration
•All-in-one Newspaper Digitization
•Custom development
•Large-scale community digitization
ODW Services

5. •Access to over 4 million digital images, oral histories, scrapbooks,
videos, newspapers, BMDs, etc…
•Aggregated content discovery via the OurOntario.ca portal from 200+
organizations
•Largest online archive of Ontario newspapers, with 200+ years of
newspaper content (Full-run scans and BMD indexes) at Ontario News
portal
•GovDocs portal offers easy and instant access to over 33,000
documents from the Legislative Library—soon to include the
HANSARD
ODW Services

6. •Public libraries, museums, archives, historical societies, community groups,
academic libraries, municipalities and government ministries, associations
•About 131 VITA Toolkit partners (~101 sites)
•Over 250 portal partners (TPL, Laurier University, Glenbow Archives, Niagara
Falls Public Library, Sparrow Lake Historical Society, to name but a few)
•Provincial and national organizations – Ontario Historical Society, Ontario
Library Association, SOLS/OLS-N, Canadiana
Clients and Partners

7. About OurDigitalWorld
About VITA
Community Connections
Collaboration
Management
Networked

8. VITA
•Software to create and manage data
•Hosting of your digital objects in secure infrastructure
•A complete interactive site for displaying your digital
collections with searching, browsing and social media
options for today’s web user

12. Platform
•We provide the technical capability and know-how so you can focus on
your collections and your community
•Cost-effective, flexible pricing options to fit your specific needs
•Options for collaborative approaches and storage
•Accessible anytime, anywhere via the web
•Analytics package provides real-use data for programming
opportunities and advocacy

13. Online Engagement Tools
•One-on-one support via chat, social and email
•Full step by step documentation
•Community forum to share tips, questions and
more
Partnership Support

14. About OurDigitalWorld
About VITA
Community Connections
Collaboration
Management
Networked

15. Online Engagement Tools
Engage with your community
•Social media and integrated engagement tools
•Create stories about the collections via the exhibits
module
•Opportunity for your audience to share their knowledge
and connection to the collections
Community Connections

16. “Sustainable” Crowdsourcing

22. Fan mail

23. About OurDigitalWorld
About VITA
Community Connections
Collaboration
Management
Networked

24. Online Engagement Tools
•Partnerships & collaboration builds stronger network
(expertise, resource sharing, multi-organizational buy-in)
•Regional representation
•Crowdsource volunteers
•Generate support
Offline and Online Networking

28. MHSO volunteer program

31. About OurDigitalWorld
About VITA
Community Connections
Collaboration
Management
Networked

32. Online Engagement Tools
•Monthly site traffic reports & analytics
•Internal statistics
•Attribution & Permissions options
•Reusable, standards-based data
Management tools

33. Analytics

36. Standards-based, reusable data =
sharing

42. About OurDigitalWorld
About VITA
Community Connections
Collaboration
Management
Networked

43. Online Engagement ToolsNetworked data
Our motto – create once, use many times in different spaces
Display the data:
Via multiple VITA sites – organizational, regional, thematic, etc.
Places where your audience is – export data into Facebook, Flickr, iTunes,
etc.
Our platform is designed to leverage and work with other applications (such
as Google Earth)

44. Connecting your community and your collections to the world

45. Optimized
discovery

48. War of 1812 Aggregated data

50. Thank you
Loren Fantin: lfantin@ourdigitalworld.org
Jess Posgate: jposgate@ourdigitalworld.org
ourdigitalworld.org
vitatoolkit.ca

51. VITA Partners:
http://vitatoolkit.ca/showcase
VITA Features Examples:
•http://vitatoolkit.ca/showcase/historical-societies/
•http://vitatoolkit.ca/showcase/museums/
References