Cultural Heritage

UKOLN’s support for the cultural heritage sector is funded by the MLA. Since the MLA’s remit is cultural heritage organisations in England the focus of our work with by institutions based in England. However the expertise we have and many of the resources we have developed are likely to be beneficial to a wider community.

The value which UKOLN can provide to a wider community has been identified by Museums Galleries Scotland (MGS). We are now providing a support service for MGS member organisations. The service will be informed by the various resources we have available, including our Introbyte briefing documents and this blog.  In addition an email service (mgs-support@lists.ukoln.ac.uk)  is available for use by the MGS member organisations.

As described on the MGS Web site the Digital Advice service for the MGS community is provided by UKOLN in conjunction with the Collections Management Network in order to support the  MGS Digital Content Action Framework.

Our intention is that key areas of interest to MGS member organisations will not only be dealt with by our email support service but will identify areas of wider interest which may be addressed by additional briefing documents or blog posts.

Later on today I’ll be giving a talk at the CILIP Executive Briefing on “Beyond the Silos of the LAMS” which will address the challenges of “Unlocking the benefits of collaboration between libraries, archives and museums”.

In my 5 minute contribution I will look back at the approaches taken to national digital library development work, starting with my involvement in the standards documents for the eLib, DNER/IE and NOF-digitise programmes. I’ll point out that the producer-focussed approaches which we promoted (in which funding bodies mandated use of certain standards and best practices) were challenged by the rise of Web 2.0 and the Social Web. And rather than digital services being a scarce commodity the role of the Social Web and services such as Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia, etc. meant that users had a vast range of digital resources on offer.

The popularity of these services has challenged the traditional approaches the public sector has taken to the development of networked services. We are now seeing a call for lightweight development methodologies, based on simple and widely deployed standards such as RSS, as opposed to the development of more sophisticated standards and applications, especially if such approaches fail to be adopted in the wider market place or their use results in complex user interfaces.

We are also seeing renewed enthusiasm from the development community, with developers apparently now willing to give up their time (sometimes weekends) in order to attend ‘mashed library’ and ‘mashed museum’ events, barcamps, hackfests and related events.

But what are the implications of this changed environment for professionals in the libraries, archives and museums sectors? Over the past couple of years UKOLN has delivered a series of workshops for the community which provide an introduction to the Social Web and how various Social Web technologies and the Web 2.0 approaches of sharing and openness can be (and are being) used to enhance the services provided by cultural heritage organisations. These workshops also address the barriers to effective use of the Social Web, including the need to gain a better understanding of the technologies, the resource implications in setting up and sustaining such services, the concerns over issues such as sustainability, interoperability, accessibility, etc. and the organisational barriers, such as the firewall policies implemented by IT services departments.

These are issues which are faced across the libraries, archives and museums sectors. Addressing these issues should therefore benefit from collaboration across libraries, archives and museums. And how do we facilitate such collaborations? One approach is to make use of the Social Web technologies to facilitate discussions and sharing across the sectors as well as using these technologies to deliver services to the user communities?

In recent months we have already seen an increased take-up of Twitter, to illustrate one Social Web technology, across the library sector. Twitter, indeed, was the focus of the recent #CILIP 2 debate, which took place at the CILIP Headquarters. The interest on the discussions of the role of Web 2.0 for the library and information communities resulted in the “#cilip2″ tag ‘trending (and being more widely discussed on the dat than ‘swine flu’). And we have just seen a directory of 100 British Librarians on Twitter which has been established, which makes it easier for newcomers to find their peers and participate in the discussions.

My vision for how we can “unlock the benefits of collaboration between libraries, archives and museums” is to encourage the spirit of openness and sharing which professionals in the sector should have and to use a variety of Social Web services to encourage greater debate and discussions on the vision for our services in the networked environment we now work in.

Phil Bradley has used TweepML, an extensible, open standard format that
allows you to manage and share groups of Twitter users, to create a list of 100 British Librarians on Twitter. TweepML allows you to select the people you want to follow, be it all of them of just a few.

In his blog post he explains that coming up with just 100 librarians has been tricky and he’s asking for feedback on the process.

He’d also like to:

Create more specific lists such as UK School Librarians, UK Academic Librarians etc, get people to manage them and leave the existing list for people who don’t fall into any of those categories. This could work, but it’s going to take time, and people prepared to volunteer to do this.

Can you help him with his mission?

The international conference for culture and heritage on-line has just opened its call for participation. Next year’s event will run from April 13-17 in Denver, Colorado, USA.

Museums and the Web explores the social, cultural, design, technological, economic, and organizational issues of culture, science and heritage on-line. Taking an international perspective, MW reviews and analyzes the issues and impacts of networked cultural, natural and scientific heritage. Our community has been meeting since 1997, imagining, tracking, analyzing, and influencing the role museums play on the Web.

On-line proposal submission is now open. You can use the form at http://www.archimuse.com/mw2010/papers/mw2010.proposalForm.html. Proposals are due in by September 30th 2009.

To get an idea of what they are after have a look at last year’s Web site.

This month’s regular summary of posts on other UKOLN blogs which may be of interest to the cultural heritage community is given below.

Sharing Screens with Screenjelly

Have you ever wanted to quickly share your screen with others. Screenjelly offers you a free way to do it. This post also considers other screencast software currently available.
Published 28 August 2009

Netskills Web2practice

Netskills are now offering a series of Guides to emergent technologies and innovative practice entitled Web2practice.
Published 26 August 2009

The Live Video Streaming Of IWMW 2009

A review of the live video streaming at UKOLN’s IWMW 2009 event.
Published 17 August 2009

Paper on “Library 2.0: Balancing the Risks and Benefits to Maximise the Dividends” Published in Program

A summary of a paper on Library 2.0 published in the Program journal.
Published 11 August 2009

Splendid Streaming at IWMW

A look at the approach taken to streaming the plenary talks at the Institutional Web Management Workshop (IWMW) held at Essex University.
Published 10 August 2009

Evidence on Use of Twitter for Live Blogging

This post summarises how twitter was used at UKOLN’s IWMW 2009 event.
Published 4 August 2009

I’ll be taking part in this CILIP/OCLC Executive Briefing Day on 15th September 2009 at CILIP HQ, London, alongside Roy Clare of MLA and Nick Poole of Collections Trust as part of the roundtable panel. So what’s this event all about?

Libraries, Archives and Museums (LAMs) all collect, manage and share information and materials. By integrating and working together, their users can access dispersed materials from within a single search environment. This one-day event will look at what makes LAM collaborations work and consider the potential for future joint ventures. The programme will feature presentations on the OCLC Research and RLG Partnership workshop series and case studies demonstrating varying forms of collaboration, followed by a panel roundtable and discussion forum. Speakers come from diverse organizations, including the Smithsonian Institution; V&A; University of Calgary; Libraries and Heritage, City of York Council; MLA; UKOLN; Collections Trust; University of Aberdeen, JISC and Culture24.

Places are still available and the full programme, speaker profiles and online booking are available at www.cilip.org.uk/lams.

Whenever there’s some slack in the schedules, TV broadcasters seem to have a habit of filling it up with the ‘top 100 xxx xxx’. For xxx xxx, insert war films, comedy films, action heroes, leading ladies, romantic moments, etc. it always seems to me to be a cheap filler programme. Do a quick survey, get hold of some film clips, have a few ‘celebrities’ do some soundbites, and you can fill an hour or two.

Well back in April 2009, there was a blog post on Top 50 Librarian Blogs.

The colleague who alerted me to this noted that all of the blogs listed were published by librarians in the US and wondered whether we should be doing our own list of top UK librarian blogs. Further, she wondered, if we did, who would we be putting at the top and why?

For example, how would we be rating them? I guess they’d need to be posting regularly – large time gaps between posts would not encourage people to revisit or add the blog to their blog reader. They’d need to be posting about relevant issues – more than a semi-official institutional news blog. And then, since there the blogosphere is undergoing a population explosion, I think people would be looking for that extra special factor – the specialist (working on an unusual archive), the experimenter (a public librarian supporting the housebound), the newshound/reviewer (finding the latest thing out there in Web 2.0 and giving it a go).

Should we be doing this for the Cultural Heritage Web site? Well, in a sense we’ve already been doing that ever since we set up the site. For example, there’s the Best Of section – which includes ‘best of blogs‘. Here we’ve listed exemplars of blogs – each with a different focus.

Then we also have a Blogs Directory, which lists a variety of blogs from the cultural heritage sector. We haven’t attempted to list every blog around but just those which focus primarily on aspects of digital technology. So, useful though they are to their institutions, we’re not listing straightforward news blogs in the directory itself.

And as well as main list of the directory, there is also an examples section. Here we have grouped together sets of blogs set up for specific purposes. For instance, a library might want to support its reading group(s) with a blog – so we’ve identified existing blogs set up for this. We’ve got another cluster where the blogs are for artists in residence at a museum or gallery – giving them a blog is a great way of publicising this in between actual events involving the artist and making contact with the public. And we have put together two clusters of news blogs, so if you’re thinking of doing this, take a look at these.

So, do we need a top 50 UK librarian blog list? (Or indeed, a top 50 Museum workers blog list or top 50 archivists blog list.) And who would you nominate to be on it?

Marieke Guy and myself are running a half-day workshop on “Using Blogs, Microblogs and Social Networks Effectively Within Your Library” which will be held on Wednesday 14 October 2009 at the Novotel London West hotel in London, on the day before the start of the Internet Librarian International 2009 conference.

The abstract for the session is given below:

If this is of interest to readers of this blog you’ll need to register on the ILI 2009 conference Web site.

Just a quick note about a free one-day event is being run by UKOLN at the University of Bath. It is intended for collection holders in HE and cultural heritage organisations, and users of digitised content for teaching, learning and research. Places are limited, so if this is of interest to you, check out more details in the email message posted recently or visit the event Web page.

Now that’s not my question but one posed by Margaret Adolphus in a recent issue of the CILIP Gazette (31 July – 13 August 2009 issue). Margaret writes:

I am a journalist specialising in librarianship, the knowledge industry and higher education, and I am researching an article on the following theme: why is it that public library websites are so often so dull compared with their American counterparts, and why do they make so little use of social media, inviting comment and participation from their publics?

There are some notable exceptions, for example:
The Idea Store
Bedfordshire
Manchester

But generally speaking few libraries do much to entice the user into the world of imagination, entertainment, information and ideas to which books and other resources are the key. They are merely service points for opening hours, online renewals, etc.

I want to look at good practice in the article and also at why public libraries do not do more in this area. My suspicion is that many are restricted in what they can do by having to conform to the ethos or design of the local authority website they are part of.

I would love to hear your views (I am happy to omit names if that is preferred). You can contact me on margaret@adolphus.me.uk or on 01525 229487.
Margaret Adolphus

So, why not just take a few minutes to look at your library website – is it dull and uninviting? Are you frustrated – you want to do more but are restricted? Are there any more innovative sites out there apart from those Margaret mentions? Or do you have plans underway – but you haven’t launched the new look site yet? Then get in touch with Margaret and let her know what you think about this.

I mentioned previously that I took part in a 2-day workshop held in Cardiff on “Search Engine Optimisation”, running a session on “Using The Social Web To Maximise Access To Your Resources“. Towards the end of the session I asked the participants to identify some of the difficulties and challenges in exploiting the Social Web for this purpose. These (slightly tweaked) questions are listed below and, as promised, I have included some responses.

Group 1

• How do you find relevant resources?
• What are the quick wins?
• How does one develop an organisational strategy?
• How does one rein in the enthusiasts?
• How do you get motivation higher up the food chain?

Finding Web 2.0 resources is probably easy, there are so many of them. Finding relevant resources may be more challenging. You will need to ensure that the resources are relevant to your particular requirement, that you have the appropriate skills and expertise to use them and that your investment in time and effort in learning about and using the resources will provide an appropriate return on investment. A suggestion I would make is to use the Social Web to make connections with your peers and top learn from them about the resources they find useful. This blog can also have a role to play. We have already published a number of guest blog posts which describe the experiences of a number of cultural heritage organisations in using Social Web services. We hope you can learn from these experiences. And why not offer to why a guest blog post yourself, about your experiences in using the Social Web.

What are the quick wins? I would suggest introducing your marketing department to various tools which can be used to observe what is being said about your organisation on the Social Web. Using Addictomatic to see what is being said about the SS Great Britain, for example, I can see that visitors are already using Twitter to talk about their visit, including one person who informs us that this is the “First time we’ve been since our parents got married on it“. An opportunity for some positive publicity about the marriage, perhaps – but also a need to reflect on the ethics of doing this. And if negative comments are being made about visits, wouldn’t you want to know about it so that, if appropriate, the concerns can be addressed. And once the marketing department understands how visitors and the media are using the Social Web they may then want to publish in this space.

The need for an organisational strategy is beginning to be raised more frequently. There’s a danger, I feel, in developing policies covering use of the Social Web too soon – there’s a need to observe the diversities of ways in which the Social Web is being used before implementing policies which may stifle innovative uses.  So perhaps the strategic approach needs to embrace a period of observing and experimentation.

The question of how one reins in the enthusiasts can perhaps be challenged. Why would you want to rein in the enthusiasm of colleagues who are keen to exploit the potential of the Social Web? Surely you should consider yourself fortunate to have such colleagues? But of course such enthusiasm will need to be managed. One approach to maintaining the enthusiasm whilst ensuring this is sustainable may be to ask the enthusiastic user of the Social Web to document how the institution should respond if funding is reduced or the enthusiast leaves the institution.

How do you get motivation higher up the food chain is another important question – after all, the  enthusiasm and a bottom-up approach can only go so far. I have suggested to those who work in higher education that the enthusiasts should ensure that senior managers are alerted to the Higher Education in a Web 2.0 World and The Edgeless University reports. These two high profile reports were commissioned by key funding bodies and related agencies and outline the strategic responses required of senior management. “Beat your senior managers over the head with these reports” is how I suggested these reports could be used to get motivation from those higher up the food chain.  It would be useful to see if similar reports have been published for the cultural heritage sector and for other groups in the public sector.

Group 2

• Who owns the content and how does one go about monitoring  it?
• How do you learn how to use social media?
• How do you automate workflow processes to keep, for example,  course materials up-to-date on third party Web sites?

The ownership of content held on Social Web services can be complicated. I have tried to avoid the complications of contracts for my UK Web Focus blog by explicitly clarifying ownership issues in the blog’s policy. The question of monitoring content is partially covered in my response to a previous question (use services such as Addictomatic). I’d also suggest that the enthusiasts who make initial use of the Social Web in a profession context define their own policies which ensure that  their use reflects the interests of their host institution along the lines I have taken for my UK Web Focus blog.

I am pleased that the question of automating workflow processes has been raised. There are certain Social Web services, such as Facebook, which I feel should be used to automatically pull in content held elsewhere. If you wish to use Facebook for an organisational presence I would recommend that details of events, photographs, videos, etc, are embedded using RSS applications or other appropriate applications (e.g. YouTube, Flickr, etc. tools)

Group 3

• How appropriate is it to move in to student’s social media (it might make them move out)?
• What about the investment in existing systems (e.g. VLEs, CMSs, etc.)?

The term creepy treehouse is sometimes used as an argument that organisations shouldn’t use Social Web services. However rather than completely avoiding use of these  services I feel there is a need to use them in appropriate fashion. It would be a mistake, I feel, to require users to ‘befriend’ an organisation in order to access their resources. However providing access to such resources in a Social Web context which users may choose to access is providing a diversity of means for users to engage with the resources.

The question of one’s investment in existing systems is, when you think about it, nothing new. We’ve been through many times before this: for example when we moved from mainframe computers to workstations and from standalone PCs to networked PCs. In the IT world this regular change has always happened and we need to ensure that as organisations we are agile enough to respond.

Group 4

• Is there a problem just trying to be cool and trendy, or can the services be used to fulfill relevant purposes?
• Can we assume that all users will be willing and able to make use of the Social Web? What about issues such as social inclusion?
• Should you seek permission in the first place… or just do it?

Public sector organisations shouldn’t be cool and trendy – they should be dull and worthy   More seriously, innovation is often intimidating and may be dismissed by being labelled as ‘cool and trendy’.  This happened in the mid 1990s when Web sites were regarded as trendy, but eventually became established (and even dull and boring!). Social Web services may be cool and trendy – but they can still be used to fulfill one’s organisational requirements.

All users will not be willing or able to make use of the Social Web, and it would be wrong to assume there is a homogeneous user community out there, who are all using Facebook and are comfortable using various Social Web services. But not all of are users are willing or able to make use of IT. Does that mean we should abandon investment in IT? Clearly not. rather issues such as social inclusion will form part of the challenges which we need to face and address. But remember that developing engaging services which make use of the Social Web may help to engage with users communities which are otherwise difficult to reach.

The suggestion that enthusiasts and motivated individuals should take an approach of ‘just do it‘ was popular a few years ago (indeed Mike Ellis and myself presented a paper on “Web 2.0: How to Stop Thinking and Start Doing: Addressing Organisational Barrier” at the  Museums and the Web 2007 conference which explored these ideas. This approach, which was not possible when significant development required large budgets and the support of IT staff, is now achievable. But there is a need to consider one’s organisational cultural and the risks that any innovation may not be sustainable.  But remember that there are approaches that individuals may be able to take (using an RSS reader, using a social bookmarking services such as del.icio.us, etc.) which can be beneficial for the individual and help improve the individual’s efficiency without the need for formal adoption within the institution.

Group 5

• How do you monitor what’s ‘out there’ and make sure it is answered in reasonable time?
• How do you convince decision makers for staff to do this work and get resources?

The first question is concerned with monitoring what is being said about your organisation on the Social Web and how one should respond, especially to criticisms. There are a wide range of tools which can be used to alert you to new content – I make use of Google alerts to send me email messages which appear to mention papers I have written. I also have RSS feeds which will alert me to blog posts and RSS feeds which mention the areas of work I am involved in. In addition the administrator’s interface for my blog will inform me of new including links which cite my posts. I then have to make a judgment on hos I should respond to this information.

How do you convince decision makers of the importance of the Social Web? Well the economic recessions, which is still to hit the public sector in its full force, will help decision makers to focus on new ways of doing things. And use of services in the Cloud may have a role to play in helping public sector organisations to continue to engage with their user communities, without having to ask for significant amounts on new investment.

Group 6

• What tone should be used for embracing Social Web?
• How do you control and monitor use of the Social Web?
• How do you identify authentic Web sites, compared to those that appear similar?

A variety of ‘voices’ can be used when making use of the Social Web. The voice behind the blog or the Twitter account could be that of an individual. Alternatively the voice could be the institution.  Both approaches have advantages and disadvantages.  My suggestion would be to observe the approaches taken by related organisations and adopt one that you feel would work best for your organisation and for the people in your organisation who will be involved in use of the Social Web.

The issue of monitoring use of the Social Web has been mentioned previously. The question of ‘control’ of the Social Web is a difficult and perhaps dangerous one to raise. You can’t control what is said about your organisation on the Social Web (unless you wish to te legal proceedings). My view is to regard the Social Web as a public place: you can’t stop people talking about you in such places, But you can talk about the things that you have being doing in this space.

The issue of authenticity in the Social Web is another interesting one.  For me, this is a question of information literacy. Yes not everything in Wikipedia, for example, will be true, and users need to appre5ciate this.  But Wikipedia is a very well-used resource. So let’s ensure, at least, that entries in Wikipedia relevant to our areas of interest and expertise benefit from our experiences and knowledge.

I hope these responses to the issues raised at the workshop in Cardiff are helpful for the participants. I should add, however, that these aren’t intended to provide ready-made answers: rather they aim to provide suggestions for approaches which may help. Let’s not imagine that there are a set of simple rules which will solve all of the uissues related to effective use of the Social Web. Life ain’t like that, I’m afraid!

Last month I gave a series of presentations on “Using the Social Web to Maximise Access to your Resources“. These were delivered in a series of workshops organised by the Strategic Content Alliance and held in Belfast, Edinburgh, London and Cardiff. In addition a slightly tweaked version of the session was held at the IWMW 2009, following the unavailability of one of the planned sessions.

The structure of the sessions was (a) an illustration how the Social Web can complement Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) techniques to maximise access to resources, services and ideas; (b) examples of approach to use of metrics to understand the success (or not) or the approaches taken and (c) discussions of the challenges to be faced in making use of the Social Web for these purposes.

The slides used at the IWMW 2009 session are included below (and are also available on Slideshare).

In the final workshop held at Cardiff on 31 July 2009 I invited participants to raise any specific concerns they had regarding use of the Social Web. These issues were recorded and are included below. I did (foolishly!) agree to provide ‘solutions’ to any issues which participants raised. I’ll try to do this in a forthcoming post. In the meantime can anyone help by providing solutions to these issues?

Table 1

• How do you find relevant resources?
• What are the quick wins?
• How does one develop an organisational strategy?
• How does one rein in the enthusiasts?
• How do you get motivation higher up the food chain?

Table 2

• Who owns the content and how does one go about monitoring  it?
• How do you learn how to use social media?
• How do you automate workflow processes to keep, for example,  course materials up-to-date on third party Web sites?

Table 3

• How appropriate is it to move in to student’s social media (it might make them move out)?
• What about the investment in existing systems (e.g. VLEs, CMSs, etc.)?

Table 4

• Is their a problem just trying to be cool and trendy, or can we fulfill particular purposes?
• Can you assume that all students are able to communicate i.e. social inclusion?
• Should you seek permission in the first place… or just do it?

Table 5

• How do you monitor what’s up there and make sure it is answered in reasonable time
• How do you convince decision makers for staff to do this work and get resources?

Table 6

• What tone should be used for embracing Social Web?
• How do you control and monitor use of the Social Web?
• How do you identify authentic Web sites, compared to those that appear similar?

This month’s regular summary of posts on other UKOLN blogs which may be of interest to the cultural heritage community is given below.

IWMW 2009 blog

The IWMW 2009 blog has been set up to support UKOLN’s annual Institutional Web Management Workshop event.
Several posts in July 2009

Travelling Kit for a Remote Worker

John Kirriemuir, digital nomad, writes about his remote working kit: from hardware to software, apps and web sites.
Published 20 July 2009

“From Web Accessibility To Web Adaptability”: A Summary

A summary of a paper published in the Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology journal which describes a new approach to Web accessibility.
Published 20 July 2009

“From Web Accessibility to Web Adaptability” Paper Published

Announcement of a peer-reviewed paper which has been released, and a summary of how the paper came to be written.
Published 17 July 2009

The Network Effect Is Missing From The Standards Debate

A summery of the importance of the ‘network effect’ in the development of communications and collaboration services.
Published 15 July 2009

Come Together

UKOLN staff get together for a lunch at the American Museum.
Published 16 July 2009

Do We Want A Standards-based Voice/Video Service?

The failure of a voice and video service for the UK higher and further education community raises interesting questions regarding the role of open standards in the development of services which users will make use of.
Published 8 July 2009

Thoughts About Dopplr and the Environment

Should the development community making use of – and publish – details of energy consumption for travel related to development activities?
Published 7 July 2009

Enthusiastic Amateurs and Overcoming Institutional Inertia

The potential of lightweight software development tools has generated much interest in various sectors. But how can amateur developers make use of such tools?
Published 6 July 2009

The Psychology of a Remote Worker

What sort of a person does it take to work effectively from home?
Published 6 July 2009

Establishing Our Online Identity

Martin Weller, Professor of Educational Technology at the Open University talks about why our online identity is now even more important than our offline one.
Published 3 July 2009

Facebook Usage by US Colleges and Universities

What can be learnt from UK educational institutions in the way in which they appear to have embraced use of Facebook and Twitter as marketing tools?
Published 1 July 2009

Nick Poole, CEO of Collections Trust, was an invited speaker at the recent JISC Digital Collections conference. Nick’s talk, entitled Digital Britain or Digital Landfill: The Challenges to Heritage and HEIs, provided a vision for the online cultural environment and how the approaches being taken by Collections Trust, which are described in a blog post on the Culture Grid, relate to the interests of the higher and further education sectors.

Nick’s talk, which seemed to be warmly received, has been summarised by Tom Roper and Carrie Dunn on the JISC digitisation blog. In addition Nick has published his slides on Slideshare and they are embedded below.

I was particularly interested to see the slide (slide 22) in which Nick how cultural content, held in the ‘Cultural Grid’ can be accessed via a wide range of services, ranging from niche services for the the researcher and professional, sector-specific services through to the mass market services provided by well-known Web 2.0 companies.

The vision Nick described reflects one which I shared, in which there is a mixed economy, with resources being curated in a secure environment and a range of access services being used to maximise access to the content.

At the Museums and the Web 2009 conference I presented a paper on “Time To Stop Doing and Start Thinking: A Framework For Exploiting Web 2.0 Service” in which I described a framework for use by policy makers, managers and developers in addressing the risks of using Cloud Services. The paper explained how the framework needs to be applied to in-house development work and use of managed Cloud service (where they may be contractual agreements) as well as the various Web 2.0 services in which there may not be formal contractual agreements.

The accompanying image illustrates how the framework, which has been described in more detail on this blog, can be applied to the development approach which Nick has described.

One of the risks which has been identified in various Web 2.0 workshops which UKOLN has delivered to the cultural heritage sector has been the need for practitioners and policy makers in the cultural heritage sector to have a better understanding of the Social Web environment, in order to ensure that the opportunities it can provide are realised and the risks understood and strategies developed to minimise such risks.

The UKOLN work plan, which has been agreed in discussions with MLA, will continue to provide advice and best practices for the sector in order to build capacity in cultural heritage organisations. We will use this blog to keep the sector informed of our activities. We also welcome your comments and views.

My colleague Marieke Guy has recently mentioned the report published by the CILIP Communications Task and Finish Group which provides a set of conclusions on CILIP’s Use of Web 2.0.

As described on the CILIP blog the draft council paper feels that:

It is important to take our message to (and glean our intelligence from) the channels that are actually being used, rather than expecting all members and stakeholders to bother to come to the services we provide.

In light of this:

• CILIP therefore needs to gain some basic practical knowledge of a minimum set of technologies which are currently used for such communication, including: blogs, communities, RSS, email discussion lists, wiki, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, CoverItLive (for conferences), Netvibes and Pipes.
• some channels will turn out not to work well for us: it is nevertheless important to be seen to try things out, and improve them in the light of experience and feedback – and if we can document why things fail, this information itself would be a service for members.

A further five bullet points where included in the conclusions. And these conclusions very much reflect the approaches suggested by myself and Phil Bradley when we spoke at the CILIP Open Meeting on use of Web 2.0 back in April.

The CILIP blog post concluded by saying that “As the premier UK body for Information Professionals, CILIP is well-placed to exploit the opportunities Web 2.0 offers. Already, CILIP in Scotland has already been an “early adopter” of many of these technologies“.

I would endorse this view. Indeed I spoke at the recent CILIP Wales and CILIP Scotland annual conferences and, as I described in my reports on the CILIP Wales and CILIP Scotland events, both events sought to be ‘amplified events’, making use of Twitter to engage a remote audience and, for the CILIP Scotland event,  I made use of Skype to demonstrate how it would be possible to bring a remote audience even closer to talks at conferences.  And the organisers of the CILIP Wales and CILIP Scotland were willing to share their experiences – along the lines described in the second bullet point given above.

We are now in a position in which the profession seems prepared to endorse a Web 2.0 approach for the information profession, which includes embracing the various tools (blogs, wikis, micro-blogs, etc.) which we are familiar with, the importance of the ‘network as the platform’  together with the softer Web 2.0 characteristics of  ‘always beta’ and a culture of openness and trusting the users.

But what next? The advocacy work which promoted the benefits of Web 2.0 for the information professional has succeeded in having a political impact on the CILIP organisation. And although there will still be a need to continue to promote the benefits which Web 2.0 can provide, the new challenge will be to embed Web 2.0 in the mainstream working practices of CILIP members. And this will involved acknowledged and addressed various risks and concerns such as the need for training and support and addressing organisational barriers, such as firewalls or policies which block access to Web 2.0 services.

We’ll be publishing a series of blog posts which will attempt to address these issues, which will be grouped together using the cilip2 category on this blog.

Earlier this week Professor Bruce Royan, Trustee of CILIP (Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) informed interested parties that a report from the Communications Task and Finish Group had been posted on the Council blog to allow comments. The report comprises of a set of conclusions on CILIP’s Use of Web 2.0. These statement offer CILIP’s commitment to Web 2.0 and the importance of their being seen to “try things out“.

The report has received primarily positive feedback from the community. As one “humble CILIP member” puts it: “I have had more meaningful engagement with CILIP through social networking sites in the last 2 months than in the last 20 years!”

Phil Bradley, who has made calls for CILIP to embrace Web 2.0 in the past, commented on the report:

“This is a really positive and forward looking set of statements which should not only put CILIP onto a good footing for future development and use of Web 2.0 technologies, but should also help professional colleagues push the case for the use of these within their own organisations.“

In response to concerns that the move towards Web 2.0 technologies will disenfranchised some less knowledgeable members chrisinwales commented

“By embracing the new, CILIP is trying to demonstrate good practice and support its members in a variety of ways (old and new) so that each can select the best current awareness tool for his or her own needs. By NOT embracing them CILIP would be disenfranchising those members who prefer to receive updates by Web 2.0.“

The discussion on the report continues but one thing it does do is highlight the need for further Web 2.0 training my many library and information professionals.

First things first – just what are QR codes?

Wikipedia defines a QR Code as: “a matrix code (or two-dimensional bar code) created by Japanese corporation Denso-Wave in 1994. The “QR” is derived from “Quick Response”, as the creator intended the code to allow its contents to be decoded at high speed.” The QR Codes can be read by some mobile phones with a camera or in Seb Chan’s words “QR codes are probably best seen just as mobile-readable URLs“.

So how might QR codes be used in cultural heritage services? I’ve found a couple of places that are currently using these codes to help users.

The University of Bath Library is adding QR codes to the details you see in the results of a catalogue search. The code contains title, author and shelf location. Their blog post notes “I simply find the resource I want, scan the code and save it on my phone. I can then use this to find the item on the shelf. In fact, I can save this on my phone (I’d probably take a little more time and cut and paste into a mobile word document) and start to build up my own reference collection.”

The Powerhouse Museum in Sydney is also trying out QR codes. In their case they’ve been trialling using the codes beside exhibits in a display to take the visitor to the catalogue entry for the item. The technical aspects are described in some detail in the post on March 5th 2009 with a follow-up post on April 8th 2009.

This follows an earlier experiment in which the QR code appeared in a festival catalogue and redirected readers to a ‘hidden’ web page which gave access to a discount voucher for the festival and free entry to the museum during the event. Further posts on October 16th 2008 and October 23rd 2008 reviewed the experiment and discussed some issues that arose.

Has anyone reading this tried using QR codes? It would be good to know if anyone else has experimented with using these codes and for what for what purpose, and how successful you think it’s been.

Netskills have recently released a series of Web2practice practice guides. The guides, which provide short animated video explaining key concepts,  explain how technologies like RSS, micro-blogging, podcasting and social media can enhance your working practice.

The animated video for micro-blogging is embedded in this blog (and is also available from the Web2practice blog and on Blip.tv) in order to illustrate the approach which has been taken.

I think that this video, possibly used in conjunction with UKOLN’s Introbyte briefing documents on micro-blogging, could well provide a useful introduction to those who are unfamiliar with (or sceptical of) the potential of micro-blogging services such as Twitter. But what do you think of this approach?

It’s not long now till one of the biggest library events of the year: Umbrella 2009. The event, held over 2 days (14 – 15 July) and organised by CILIP, will see over 600 delegates descend on the University of Hertfordshire to hear about the important issues in the library world.

This year Web 2.0 tools feature significantly. There is a conference blog, delegates can access a wireless connection in the conference rooms and two exhibition halls and people are strongly encouraged to tweet using the event hashtag: #cilipumbrella.

There are also a number of sessions dealing with the Web 2.0 effect on libraries including:

• Using Web 2.0 and mobile learning to support the curriculum – Anthony Beal, West Cheshire College

• Personal services: how information services can support the university’s marketing strategy through Web 2.0 and beyond – Elizabeth Malone, Kingston University

• Podcasting in education – Alan Carr, Mid-Cheshire College

• Building a successful library Web 2.0 service in 7 steps – James Smith, Sunderland Libraries and Nick Stopforth, Newcastle Libraries

And posters including:

• Creating a library blog – Kirsty Thomson

• Learning 2.0 @LJMU – technology enhanced staff development – Leo Appleton

This year the Libraries Change Lives Award ceremony will takes place at Umbrella 2009 instead of at the Library & Information Show (LIS). Andrew Motion, previously Poet Laureate and now Chair of MLA, will present the award on Wednesday 15th.

If you are interested in attending there are still places available.

This month’s summary of posts on other UKOLN blogs which may be of interest to the cultural heritage community is given below.

Local Authorities Working Smarter

A trip report on a one-day conference on Improving Services and Reducing Costs Through Flexible Working. What can the cultural heritage sector learn about roll out of remote working from Local Authorities?
Published 24 June 2009

Openness and IWMW 2009

Although the Institutional Web Management Workshop (IWMW) 2009 event is focussed primarily on the higher education sector as this event will be ‘amplified’ with video-streaming of the plenary talks complemented by live-blogging, the event may be of interest to a wider community, including those in the cultural heritage sector.
Published 23 June 2009

I’m A Top Influencer For The Open University! (Or Am I?)

How does one measure ‘impact’ in the Social Web? Brian Kelly’s UK Web Focus blog was listed as a top ‘influencer’ on the Open University in the area of ‘distance learning’. But how accurate is the underlying methodology?
Published 22 June 2009

Reviving Video Conferencing

A recent rour of the University of Bath’s video conferencing suite leads the author to ask why these high spec resources are under used.
Published 21 June 2009

Respect Copyright (and Subvert It!)

The Digital Heritage Report focussed on the need to protect the intellectual property rights of the commercial sector such as the music and film industries. This blog post argues that for public sector organisations, such as higher education, benefits can be gained from opening up access to one;’s content. The post argues that Creative Commons licences provides a way of doing this.
Published 18 June 2009

Digital Identity Dilemmas

This blog post takes a look at recent Facebook vanity URL registration and how it raises questions about our own digital identity.
Published 15 June 2009

Have You Claimed Your Personal And Institutional Facebook Vanity URL?

This blog post suggests that claiming a short name for an institutional presence of Facebook (and for your personal Facebook account, if you have one) will make it easier to market and cite your Facebook URL.
Published 13 June 2009

Amplified Conferences: Are We There Yet?

A look at recent amplified conferences including CILIP events and discussion of what’s still missing from a consumer point of view
Published 11 June 2009

The JISC SIS Landscape Study

Although aimed at the JISC community, the JISC Shared Infrastructure Services (SIS) Landscape study, which aims to explore the reasons for the popularity of many Web 2.0 services, is likely to be of general interest.

Published 10 June 2009

“Wanna chat with me on cam?”

Advice on the need to restrict access to social networking services once they are no longer required.
Published 3 June 2009

Google Wave, HTML 5 and Browser Policies

In light of the recent announcement about Google Wave, isn’t there a need for organisations to upgrade their browsers to versions which support both Web standards and innovative developments.
Published 1 June 2009