Minutes for 17 March 2016
Present
Lisa Matuzelis Wollongong Ellen Forsyth, SLNSW Donna Braye, Mosman Geoff Potter, Gosford Thomas MacRae, Auburn Karen Richardson, Hornsby Neil Chippendale, Hornsby Jeff Stonehouse, Port Macquarie-Hastings Kirstin Cox,Campsie Catherin Hardie, Campsie John MacRitchie, Manly Theo Stevens, Manly Ann Crump, Lake Macquarie David Berg,SLNSW John Johnson, Kogarah Amie Zar, Leichhardt Sharelle Ravenscroft, Pittwater Georgina Keep, Randwick Kasia Malicka, Burwood Jan Herivel, Blacktown David Clarke, Hurstville Sophia Smiley, Waverley Kirsten Broderick, Rockdale Lisa Perugini, Strathfield Barbara Moss, Strathfield Naomi Bassford, Lane Cove MichelleGoldsmith, Wyong Shirley Ramrakha, Willoughby Liz Agnew, Stanton Shannon Haritos, Stanton Anniee Hyde Ashfield Marilyn Gallo, Cabramatta Stephanie Bailey, Sutherland Jennifer Madden, Bankstown Lynda Muggridge, City of Sydney Aleem Aleemullah, Marrickville Kay Shirt, Lithgow Jo Oliver, Camden JudyNicholson, Maitland Sue Ryan, Newcastle Helen McDonald, Sutherland Marilyn Gallo, Fairfield Sue Dredge, Fairfield Angela Phippen, Ryde Jean Elias, Holroyd Michelle Nichols, Hawkesbury Michelle Redmond, Warringah Rose Cullen, Warringah Jim Boyce, Pittwater Historical Society Chloe O'Reilly
Apologies Neera Sahni Parramatta Ellen Hottelmann - Bankstown
Introduction
- Donna Braye talked briefly about the various mailing lists that the Group uses to communicate, which are the ALIA local studies list, Local studies list and the PLN list.
- Donna also mentioned the RISG website as a location for useful information and past minutes for the group.
- Donna then introduced Neil Chippendale who gave a Welcome to Country before introducing the first speaker of the day.
- Laura Fraser, Heritage Planner, Hornsby Council What does a heritage planner want from a Local Studies Collection
1 Laura Fraser – Heritage Planner
Laura works in the Town planning and heritage conservation department of Hornsby Council and spoke about the work between the planning department and local studies.
The main area collaboration is the Heritage study including items such as houses, gardens, trees and using Local Studies resources when reviewing the heritage study. Reviewing the Heritage Study gives opportunities for the community to ask for items to be listed, the establishment of heritage areas if a precinct meets certain criteria. Local Studies is a great resource for Heritage planners as they can provide access to many photographs that can be used as contributory items, which are items that contain characteristics or show the style of the time period that is being researched. These contributory items can then be used as points of reference for restoration of heritage listed buildings.
Question - Are you under pressure from to approve applications to demolish and rebuild? The Planning opinion is that if it exhibits the character of the period then under the guidelines the application will not be supported, but there is also the possibility of setting a consultant for a second opinion. In the past there have been court cases, so going through the proper procedures is important.
There are other Local Studies resources that are useful for research to get enough information to support Heritage listing which include: · Valuations/rate books for finding dates for houses · Subdivision plans to compare patterns of street layout and changes over time · Sands directory another source for house and street information · Aerial photos are useful for dating heritage listed trees and mapping changes · Inventory sheets on website helps with research and accessing contributory item information · Heritage committee membership/consulting allows the Committee to access the Local Studies Librarians expertise and knowledge o Most meetings are conduced virtually by email, which is an easy way to include Local Studies. · The Heritage Awards are an annual event that publicly acknowledge works, such as books or building restorations that promote heritage in the LGA. They are normally presented at Council Meetings but sometimes combined with the arts festival or with Hornsby Historical Society events. The resources of Local Studies are invaluable to heritage planning.
Questions Has there been a concerted push against heritage in Hornsby? There is a community that values heritage, but like everywhere the developers want to develop and sometimes the State Government come over the top and upzone areas to fit their plans. The main thing to do is try to manage the change as best as possible.
There is a need to be constantly reviewing Heritage Items, as there has been an increase in heritage areas and about same in items over 5 reviews. But reviews can be fraught with danger, as there are differing desires of residents, so even if the house owner is for the property being listed, or if neighbours want a house listed, the listing process still needs to be followed requiring the proper research to be conducted.
The attitude to post war/post 1960’s heritage listings is still too early to be valued as other items in the Heritage report as some people do not consider them heritage items, even some owners don’t know their properties are heritage listed. One of the heritage reviews identified 1960’s areas that need to be listed, and it is up to Local Studies and the Heritage Committee to identify newer areas (post 1960’s) to start preserving and adding to the heritage report.
The Heritage Committee plays an important role in the heritage planning process, but recently the advice has been ignored after years of following the advice of the Committee. The Committee’s advice is once again being followed more now.
The Town Planners put up a draft of the heritage report to the Committee for feedback and recommendations, so they play a role in the heritage planning process.
The Heritage Committee mostly meets virtually via email to discuss any items that come before the group. But there are face to face meetings when contentious applications are presented to the Committee.
Does Local Studies receive heritage Development Applications? Local Studies takes all heritage DA’s and Council can ask for photographic recording for DA’s, which is especially important if the property is being demolished or modified in a significant way. All heritage items will have photos as a requirement of the DA, but not sure about items that are listed as contributory only.
2. Paul Littrich
Neil introduced the next speaker, Paul Littrich. Neil approached Paul to collaborate on an exhibition for the 100 year anniversary of World War I, but wanted to do something different and luckily Paul is a WWI memorabilia collector.
Paul began with a Welcome to Country and how the Aboriginal people were the first interpreters, trying to make sense of things.
How Local Studies got Paul to produce a WWI display Paul is a graphic designer, which he explained as someone who produce symbols to represent people or businesses. It is about interpretation, how people make sense of the world, because symbols are meaningless unless put into context.
It is the role of us as interpreters to making sense of things, in this case the stories about people, where we come from, how lives have developed and the local communities that they are a part of. Interpretation is about not just the information but also engaging illustratively, people want heritage in context, so they need a reason to engage.
The WWI Exhibition was about bringing storytelling into exhibitions and the planning process included the following steps: The overall vision of what the exhibition should look like The experiences that the audience should get out of the exhibition Understanding your audience and how different people experience exhibitions: Streaker – someone who rushes through the exhibition as fast as possible Stroller – someone who takes their time in the exhibition Student – someone who studies every panel of the exhibition Takeaway, what is it that the audience gets out of the exhibition. Audiences don’t remember “nice,” they don’t learn anything, so it needs to be memorable. The messaging and context that you are trying to convey. You don’t need to look at this too early but it is about what you want to achieve and you will usually come across this further along in the process and sometimes it is not necessarily what you originally think. Working in a fixed environment, so you need to work with what the space throws up and show the environment at its best. The presentation of content needs to be appropriate, so there is no reason to follow the flavour of the month, for example digital, when another presentation method would be more appropriate. Always refer back to what it is that you want to achieve rather than methodology. Evaluation should be constantly taking place to make sure you are achieving your goals. Knowing your limits, for example existing furniture and use of the space. Mobile things can be grouped together around existing restrictions People need the item under their noses otherwise they won’t see it Set user routes, plan how you want people to move through the space Use a map to see hot spots/heavy use and put items in those areas People gravitate to refuge areas which is another good place for items Make it welcoming
The sourcing of content was from the following: TROVE, especially the digitised newspapers Australian War Memorial website, the Red Cross records were particularly useful Local Studies Collection These items were used to add colour and interest to the exhibition
It is important to establish the identity of the people in the exhibition. You need to tell people what you are talking about by putting a face to the name in the historical documents. The use of similar typography to the documents in the panels helps to create this connection between the face and the name.
For the design and documentation you need to know your space and be specific, by getting measurements of the size and shape of the space. For example the entry feature was a postcard that had been blown up to life size and cut out so it caught the attention of people straight away. Be specific about all elements in the documentation, this is important to make sure that you get what you ordered, and you know that what you are getting will fit the space.
For the presentation you need to give people different engagement points try to do this through engaging more than one sense in the presentation. Use the source material to draw graphics and images from to incorporate in the presentation, as people will gravitate to faces. Using individual stories helps to engage the audience, but don’t use too many that could make it confusing or overwhelming with lots of information.
When promoting the exhibition, earlier is better, as it gives more time for people to find out about it. It is worth placing an article in the local paper as people will come if they are intrigued.
The process that we used to measure performance was to: Explore – define – express – deliver – evaluate – (repeat)
During the process there was ongoing feedback and evaluation at every stage. To get the best outcomes this should be a formal process and you should be hard on yourself, otherwise you will not learn anything or improve. There should be an assessment process that takes place before, during, after the project, using a determined standard and measurement of outcomes, for example learning, emotional and behavioural outcomes.
Set out the interpretation objectives that you want to achieve, one method is SMART: Specific, measurable, attainable, results focused, timetabled
You should also observe and listen to patrons when they are visiting the exhibition. You can then identify patterns of behaviour, track the movements of patrons, get a count of people engaging with the exhibition and how long they spend looking at it. Getting candid responses and conversations will give you the best feedback. See if people pick up the hidden gems/Easter eggs in the exhibition to gauge how people are connecting with the exhibition. Exit interviews are useful because the will give you demographic information, you can find out what information people retained from their visit, get an overall rating from people and make it hard for people to sit on the fence, no middle ground like “good,” you want to get useful feedback. Find out if people think there could be any improvements made. Then record this information, report on it and apply this to the exhibition.
Stories make memory, memory makes connections, connections endear, endearment promotes repeat visitation which creates further opportunities to engage.
Questions It is important to team up with someone who has empathy so that they are invested in the project as much as you are. The value of documentation is very important, as it will provide assurance of the concept and is very useful in reviewing the project. Getting reuse out of the exhibition is possible because of the investment of time and money into the project and getting high quality products that will last. The problem with cost effectiveness is that will generate less interest and won’t be a great experience for patrons.
What was feedback like for the project? There was a lot of positive community feedback, which was recorded in a comments book and we were pleased with feedback from the press, the public and also the councillors.
How did you work with your Comms Unit? Most of the project was independent of the Comms Unit, as Local Studies had a good working relationship with them.
3. Manly Virtual Library
The Manly Virtual Library project has been running for less than 6 months and aims to recreate the Manly Library online, but first a disclaimer, we are not experts. VR (virtual reality) is the use of technology to send information to our senses in an immersive way. The technology is not new, but it has become more convincing over the past few years. The advent of mobile technology has helped the development of VR the most, so that you are now able to use your smartphone to create a VR headset. VR is different to Augmented Reality, in that AR is the projection of holograms over real life. There are different companies that are experimenting with VR, with Oculus Rift and the Sony PS4 being two.
The Project is creating a 3D model of Manly Library, which will house digital content. This project is going beyond the initial digitisation of content, to exploring what to do with the content and is similar to a virtual business, where the entire store is virtual.
The program that the project uses is called Unity and it is a cross platform game engine. That can be used with Google plugins and to find out more search for “unity 3D games.” A top of the line computer was purchased to be dedicated to the project, as the normal work computers were not capable of running the Unity program. The project also needed talented volunteers with computer programming skills.
The project aims to draw attention to content that is “invisible.” For example: · You would be able to use ebooks, videos, all in the environment · Jump to specific places within the library · Move through the environment normally · Allow for the presentation of content across suppliers. For example you can access all eBooks regardless of whether they are Wheelers or Overdrive form the same place, instead of moving between programs like you normally would need to do. Looking at items then creating digital representations · Create a record of the building or collection at a time by saving snapshots of the layout before collections were moved or the building altered · It allows patrons to not be limited to the physical location of the library, but get a similar experience · Tailor content to audience o Examine what it was like o It allows for different ways to organise content, for example having gardening books in a garden or outside · Preserving institutional knowledge by keeping records of layouts and also collection content · It allows for access to items of value/rare/fragile that would not normally be physically accessible
We will be looking at content creation, as the virtual library is a social space and we want patrons to be able to connect to the area. Another idea is to look at adding surrounding stores to the space around the library to generate funding by charging a fee to add the store.
The project is a great tie in for the Code Clubs and also Local Studies. It is Local Studies that contains the stories such as oral histories, filmed stories and pictures which makes the virtual library interesting to visit.
Questions: How does Google Cardboard fit different phones? There are different sizes that you can get for different sized phones.
Is it possible to import information from other sources? You can import information from other programs, for example CAD, as it is architectural measured, the building blueprints were used to create the virtual Manly Library.
How did you select your volunteers? We have a very efficient volunteer coordinator who was able to identify good volunteers that had skills in computer coding or were good with computers. We kept the amount of volunteers small, as there was only 1 computer.
How did you come up with the idea? A staff member was doing parts of the building in their spare time, so we asked to turn it into a project and received permission to go from there.
10S5M Michelle Goldsmith – Picture Wyong
Wyong Local Studies had not many images available, as the catalogue was not great and there was no social media. After completing a training course using ContentDM, created Picture Wyong and now have images available.
Ann Crump – Rate Records Digitisation
First step is to find out where they are.
4. John Johnson – Linked Open Data
Whats wrong with MARC? MARC stands for MAchine Readable Code, and it is only machine readable by a single set of machines which are library catalogues, which makes it limited in its application. Search engine optimisation (SEO) is trying to make your result the first one that shows when searching on a topic. The Knowledge Graph is the information displayed on the right of the search results and is a type of metadata harvest from machines that shows related image, text, data and searches. This is the search pre-empting answers to queries by auto filling the most common searches and results. The problem with library catalogues is that there are images on TROVE but these images do not show up in a google image search. For the SEO example, I am using google because it is the currently the most commonly used search engine.
The Semantic Web is the extension of the World Wide Web that enables people to share content beyond the boundaries of applications and websites. So instead of items being falling into the three categories of subject, predicate and object, these items will have two way links between these pieces of information, with the link also being a piece of information.
Bibframe is a model by the Library of Congress that uses a linked data model to use the RDF modelling practice of uniquely identifying as Web resources all entities, attributes, and relationships (i.e., properties) between entities.
Linked data example 1 – Kogarah Soldiers Took an excel spreadsheet of Kogarah Soldiers address, put it into a Google fusion table that would extract the addresses and plot them on Google Maps. In the future it would be good to add images to this data set, but at the moment there is not a lot of control over the API.
Example 2 – Sydney Streets This is a way to make this information public, so that is accessible on the open web, this means that knowledge graphs are including this information. This was done with a link to the fusion table.
Example 3 – Data scraping by kimonolabs API Using catalogued searches which were saved as persistent URLs, and then putting these searches into Google fusion tables so that external services and APIs can access the catalogue information. For example the Invisible Australians dataset.
Bluecloud is a bolt on to Sersi Dynix that increases the visibility of searches by having them show up on the open web. For example a search on “Great Expectations” will show all items in the catalogue on a Google search.
FRBR or the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records is an approach to cataloguing that stays in MARC & DublinCore but allows the records to translate to the open web. This is a similar transition for Dublin Core as Bibframes is for MARC. It is a movement from a web of documents to a web of data with the greater the interlinkage of data making the data more searchable.
Questions
Does using a Google search bar for the history group resources qualify as linked open data? This is not linked open data until it creates the semantic links between the items, using a Google search bar will make it more searchable but not neccesarily open data.
This searching depends on the accuracy of the information, so it still needs humans to check the data, so there is a greater role for Local Studies staff. The computer is not replacing humans.
The Creative Commons license is machine readable as long as it is embedded in the item, so searches can be filtered by Creative Commons licence and this will help to increase access to items.
It is best to experiment with using datasets that Local Studies already have to see what is possible, for example using records of land owners to show ownership in NSW
10SI5M Amiee Zar – Montage
Montage is the replacement for the web OPAC and makes the layout and searching more like the TROVE interface, with the different formats shown on the search results. This also has an integration of the Indyreads platform from NSWNET, which allows for wholly owned content to be accessed from the catalogue.
Catherine and Kirstin – Perpetual Poppies
Perpetual Poppies project was a community contribution to the World War 1 display, where a patron would dedicate a poppy based on the names of soldiers, or street that they lived on. This collection was added to Local Studies.
People, Places, War was the name of the temporary exhibitions that was designed to use the new touch table. The exhibitions were designed to be simple, as they are loaded via Dropbox, which also makes the easy to make active or inactive. The touch table has multiple touch points meaning that multiple users can use it at the same time. The main cost of the touch table was the software, but there is no limit in terms of content, the only limiting factor is the size of the Dropbox account, we had to pay for more space. It is a great way to showcase content and generate interest in the collection. And it is good for collaboration as other staff have used content in different ways with different uses depending on the needs of the user. The touch table is customiseable for the content, but the software is locked down. There are settings that allow you to change how you use the table, for example changing the responsiveness of the touch screen. Currently not aware of any usage stats that can be recorded.
General Business
Ellen Forsyth talked about how the State Library of NSW is now using Redbubble, with items that are out of copyright being available through the website. Ellen talked about a new program called Portico from DXLabs that takes 200 images and displays them in interesting ways. It is about discovery, not information as it is a browsing interface. DXLabs are working with the SLNSW and wanted to know what they can do for public libraries, Ellen will email the specs for the program to the group.
2. Local Studies Audit follow up This is now available on the RSIG Wiki with the help of some members of this group. The results were split into 5 subject groups and thank you to all the people who helped do this by videoconference. The next step is setting out the rationale for a Local Studies Collection including areas such as Collection Management, Managing Collections and Access. The next meeting will look at navigation and how this will be best accomplished. The Wiki has more headings as the group found that some area had been compressed and needed to be split as they were found to need more work. This involved the early work being pulled across into more structured form. Ellen will send out a new email for help as there are still some big area that need work, such as Managing Collections, Access, Research and Programs, but other areas are almost done. But we are all contributing to a valuable statewide document and the final process will involve a day of editing and will be asking for volunteers for 1-2 full days that will not consecutive and if you can offer a location that is also good. There is a huge amount done already and getting close to being done, with just the colour pages needing a lot of work.
3. Social media collecting is an area that needs to be looked at and incorporated into your collecting as it is still mostly overlooked.
4. Next meeting The hope is that the Local Studies Audit will be completed by the next meeting. Videoconferencing will be available for those who cannot make it in person.
Next meeting and agenda local studies
Wider local studies This provides information about the national local studies network.