Webinar on Lean Prototyping and User Testing Offered by Interactive Mechanics
Interactive Mechanics will be offering a Lean Prototyping & User Testing Webinar on Wednesday, January 25, 3-4 PM ET. Participation is Free!
More about the Webinar:
http://interactivemechanics.com/workshops/
Prototypes are early interactive models you can build to test an idea before any code is written. They can range from sketches on paper to a series of click-through screens, and they allow you to learn directly from your visitors before spending time and money on software development. During this webinar, we’ll cover options for rapidly developing prototypes, including paper prototyping and creating rich interactive experiences using free online tools. We’ll review how to use these prototypes to conduct lean user tests—in-person and remotely—on a limited budget and schedule. We’ll also review ways to ensure you’re thinking about continued evaluation and improvement after a project goes live.
Interactive Mechanics is a digital design firm that partners with cultural, educational, and care organizations on design, development, user experience, and strategy. We’ve learned a lot from our client projects, and we love sharing information about our process, tools, tips and tricks.
In Case You Were Wondering about GLAM Cafe…
After discussing various alternatives, the hosts of the GLAM Cafe (held at the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, the Library Company of Philadelphia and the Chemical Heritage Foundation) have decided to discontinue our monthly evening meetings. The meeting on Tuesday, December 13, was the last formally scheduled event. We hope you will engage with alternative future events including organizing meetings (virtual or in-person) and events from PhillyDH; monthly “Wikipedia Wednesday” open office hours at the Chemical Heritage Foundation, starting January 18, 2017; and monthly Wikipedia editing sessions in cooperation with Science Saturdays at the Chemical Heritage Foundation, likely beginning in March or April 2017. Future PhillyDH events will be announced here and on the Google discussion list. For Wikipedia events, see listings at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Philadelphia. Also check out the schedules of events at Temple University’s Digital Scholarship Center https://sites.temple.edu/tudsc/events/ and the University of Pennsylvania’s Kislak Center http://www.library.upenn.edu/exhibits/rbm/events.html and Price Lab for Digital Humanities https://pricelab.sas.upenn.edu/events.
Many thanks to Mary Mark Ockerbloom, Matt Shoemaker, Nicole Scalessa, and Mitch Fraas for their support of the GLAM Cafes over the past two years.
Upcoming Event: Presentation at GLAM Cafe, Chemical Heritage Foundation, Tuesday, December 13
Join us for a regularly scheduled GLAM Cafe and PhillyDH meeting on Tuesday, December 13, at the Chemical Heritage Foundation, starting at 5:00. There will be a presentation by Margaret Graham, who will discuss “In Her Own Right: Women Asserting Their Civil Rights, 1820-1920”, a new digital collections project involving Philadelphia-area institutions.
The multi-institution project focuses on historical materials documenting the struggle for women’s rights in the century leading to the passage of the 19th Amendment. Featuring materials from PACSCL (Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries) collections, the project looks at the region’s tradition of women working to expand their rights and opportunities, and examines the ways in which many different women were working in different spheres in support of women’s social, cultural and political rights.
The co-principal investigators are Margaret Graham, Managing Archivist, Drexel University College of Medicine Legacy Center, Margery N. Sly, Director of Temple University Libraries’ Special Collections Research Center, and Heather Willever-Farr, Manager of Digital Services, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
Margaret has been leading the project’s technology working group and will discuss content, metadata, and technology at the GLAM Cafe at the Chemical Heritage Foundation on December 13, 2016, 6.00 p.m. Learn more about GLAM Cafe at: https://www.meetup.com/GLAM-Cafe-Philadelphia/
Digital Archivists of Philadelphia Meeting, November 17
The next meeting of the Digital Archivists of Philadelphia (DAP) will be Thursday, November 17, 2016, from 3:30pm-5:00pm at the Chemical Heritage Foundation. The topic of the meeting is metadata for born-digital records.
Kelly Bolding, Princeton University, will reflect on the role of improvisation (and documenting improvisation) within digital processing and metadata workflows by talking about a practical example where she developed a bash script tool to append missing file extensions while working with a hybrid personal papers collection
Cathleen Lu, Chemical Heritage Foundation, will talk about transitioning to linked data by reevaluting and repurposing familiar metadata schemes and the various challenges of linked data ontologies, vocabularies, and data modeling in RDF
Katy Rawdon, Temple University, will describe efforts at Temple University to apply collection-level and seed-level metadata to websites captured in Archive-It
Julie Swierczek, Swarthmore College, will present “An Assortment of Thoughts on Metadata”
Info is also on the Digital Archivists of Philadelphia website, https://digitalarchivistsphilly.wordpress.com/2016/09/15/chf-2016/.
Vote! Also, Come to GLAM Cafe Meetup This Evening at CHF
Happy Election Day!
If you were wondering… Yes, there will be the regular GLAM Cafe Meetup starting 5pm at the Chemical Heritage Foundation this evening. The Meetup page discussion indicates that stalwarts will be there: http://www.meetup.com/GLAM-Cafe-Philadelphia/events/234799951/. There may be no formal PhillyDH meeting as several of the leadership will not be able to make it.
Webinar on Getting Started on Exhibition Development, November 9
Another opportunity to expand your knowledge on exhibition development is being offered in conjunction with Philadelphia CultureWorks on November 9. Join Interactive Mechanics for group oriented participation in the Webinar. Here’s their notice:
The American Alliance of Museums in collaboration with the National Association for Museum Exhibition, is presenting a webinar on November 9, and we’d like to invite you to a free webinar “watch and talk”! As usual, we’ll have snacks.
Getting Started on Exhibition Development
WHERE
CultureWorks
1315 Walnut Street, Suite 320
Phila, PA 19107
WHEN
Wednesday, November 9
1:30 – 2:00 PM ET: Check in & Networking
2:00 – 3:30 PM ET: Webinar
3:30 – 4:30 PM ET: Facilitated Discussion
Please register in advance at http://interactivemechanics.com/workshops/.
Reminder: GLAM Cafe and Philly DH Meeting at the Chemical Heritage Foundation, Tuesday, October 13
Join us Tuesday, 10/13, at the Chemical Heritage Foundation for our next PhillyDH meeting during GLAM Cafe! The GLAM Cafe begins at 5 with the PhillyDH meeting starting at about 6. THATCamp Philly 2015 is next week! Top priority will be finalyzing logistics and assigning some roles for the day of. If you plan on volunteering for THATCamp I highly recommend you attend this meeting or get in touch with someone else who will be there before hand. The past few meetings has also had a group working on the phillydh website, discussing where we want phillydh to do, and breaking off into their own projects.
If you have not signed up yet for THATCamp Philly or have session ideas to propose then do so here: http://2015.thatcampphilly.org/
Directions to CHF: http://www.chemheritage.org/visit/conference-center-rental/directions.aspx
Upcoming Event: Lecture by Frank Lee, “City at Play” Followed by “Games, Gaming, and Play!” An Open Festival at Temple University, Wednesday, September 30
Frank J. Lee will lecture on the City at Play – An Exploration of Physical Spaces and Digital Games
Wednesday, September 30, 2:30 pm, Paley Library Lecture Hall, 1210 Polett Walk, Ground Floor
For the last two years, Frank Lee has “hacked” (with permission) the LED lights of the Cira Centre Building, a 29-story Philadelphia skyscraper, to create large-scale, interactive games of Pong and Tetris. In his talk at Temple, Lee will discuss the aesthetic these large-scale gaming installations ignite, which he calls “a shared moment” for Philadelphia and Philadelphians. For his talk at Temple, Lee will also put forth his larger vision for using urban structures and spaces as game tokens in city-wide interactive games, while exploring the interaction and intersection of physical spaces and digital games.
Dr. Frank J. Lee is an Associate Professor of Digital Media in the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts and Design at Drexel University with appointments in Psychology, Computer Science, and Biomedical Engineering.
This program is part of the Beyond the Page public programming Games Without Frontiers series and will be followed by Games, Gaming, and Play! An Opening Festival
Throughout Paley Library, 1210 Polett Walk, 5-8 pm
Games, gaming, and play take over Paley Library! Organizations, gamers, and game makers from throughout the city will gather to showcase hands-on activities, video and tabletop games, and more. We’ll also have live music, food and giveaways. Participants include the Temple University Gamers’ Guild, the Moore College of Art and Design, Game Forge, the Chemical Heritage Foundation, Philly Nerd Nite, the Game Room at the Howard Gittis Student Center, and Temple University Cricket Club. With musical entertainment from Cheap Dinosaurs. Live broadcast by WHIP Radio.
Upcoming Event: Mid-Atlantic Fedora User Group Meetup, at the Chemical Heritage Foundation, November 30-December 1
Registration for the Mid-Atlantic Fedora User Group meetup is now open.
It’ll be two days: Monday, November 30th and Tuesday, December 1st.
This is an opportunity to learn about Fedora (http://www.fedora-commons.org/) if you’re not yet familiar with it. This is also a great chance to hear how Fedora is being used in the community. We’ll have several presenters from around the area talking about their presentations.
The program is arranged to move from the more general to the specific. The first day will cover an introduction to Fedora, and a wide variety of examples of how people are using it. As the day progresses, the talks will become increasingly technical. The second day will be hands-on workshops for developers and others who work extensively with Fedora.
Fedora is used in a wide variety of digital library platforms and tools. We’ll be joined by David Wilcox, Product Manager of Fedora, and representatives from the Digital Public Library of America.
You can learn more from the website: http://midatlanticfedorausers.org/
You can register (for one or both days) here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mid-atlantic-fedora-users-group-tickets-18686418581
Upcoming Event: MARAC Ingest and Management of Digital Collections Workshop, October 23, Morristown, NJ
Ingest and Management of Digital Collections Workshop
REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN!
Date: Friday, October 23, 2015
Time: 9:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Location: Morristown & Morris Township Library, 1 Miller Road, Morristown, New Jersey 07960
Instructors: Josh Ranger and Rebecca Chandler, AVPreserve
Cost: $85
Parking and Directions: http://www.jfpl.org/directions.cfm
Workshop Preparation: Free Internet applications downloaded onto attendees’ laptops for hand-on exercises
Workshop Description:
The common use and creation of electronic records has been ongoing for over 30 years, and the rate of creation continues to increase as technology makes it easier and easier to create image, audio, and video files, and as we continue digitizing analog collections. For archives there is a heightened risk of loss or inability to access these records if regular workflows for ingest, management, and preservation are not instituted. This full day workshop will present case studies of such workflows for large and small institutions dealing with digitized and born digital collections, and then provide hands-on training in the use of assorted free digital curation tools (Fixity, MDQC, Bagger/BagIt, exiftool, etc.) that support ingest, transfer, storage, metadata generation, and monitoring of electronic records. Participants will come away with a clear knowledge of how to use these tools and what role they play in collection management workflows, and a sense of how to implement the use of the tools within their institution. Attendees will need to bring laptops with all applications downloaded and installed to participate in hands-on exercises. All applications are available free of charge on the Internet.
About the Instructors:
Josh Ranger is a Senior Consultant with AVPreserve where he has worked since 2007 heading up Collection Assessment and Inventory, with a specialization in data analysis and communication in support of planning, advocacy, collection management, and resource development. Recent projects have focused on non-traditional and production-based archives, including broadcasting collections, performance documentation, and institutional archives. Joshua’s work centers on managing high-efficiency item-level inventories, creating processing workflows for audiovisual materials, and developing preservation plans for unprocessed and distributed collections. Josh initially found/honed his love of information management in the worlds of Natural History, insurance, and the Walt Whitman Electronic Archive. He has earned MAs in Moving Image Archiving & Preservation from NYU and in American Studies from the University of Virginia, and his BA in English from the University of Oregon.
Rebecca Chandler has been a consultant with AVPreserve since 2014 where she specializes in analysis and recommendations for digitization workflows, infrastructure, and staffing. Recent projects have focused on market analysis and digitization lab design for organizations such as NEDCC, the New York Public Library, and the Southern Folklife Collection at UNC. Rebecca is an experienced audio engineer, having worked in audio post-production at Broadway Video, Creative Group, and Sony Music Studios. She earned her MLIS with an Archives certificate from Pratt Institute and holds a BM in Music Technology from NYU.
Registration:
Online Registration is available at https://marac.memberclicks.net/index.php?
For questions regarding workshop registration, contact: the MARAC Administrator at admini…@marac.info.
For additional information about the workshop, contact: Laurie Rizzo, 302.658.2400 ext. 277 or lri…@hagley.org .
Academy of Certified Archivist credits available upon request.