How will you commemorate the First World War centenary? #ndf2012

How will you commemorate the First World War centenary?
Virginia Gow @vexus_nexus and Douglas Campbell, WW100 and Auckland Museum

What is your organisation doing to commemorate the centenary of the First World War?
The First World War (1914–1918) was one of the most significant events of the twentieth century and had a seismic impact on New Zealand society. Ten percent of our then population of one million served overseas, of which more than 18,000 died and over 40,000 were wounded. Nearly every New Zealand family was affected.
In this session, join Virginia Gow and Douglas Campbell to get some pointers on preparing your organisation for WW100 – New Zealand’s First World War centenary commemorations. We’ll cover some of the activities already underway in the digital GLAM sphere, how you might contribute to national initiatives such as the Cenotaph redevelopment, and hold an open discussion on how we can support each other to be ready for WW100.

Virginia: Centenary of WWI coming up in 2014. Why are we commemorating it? Is there anything left to digitise?

Nearly half of NZ's young men went to war. Events touched every family, community, school, workplace. Aim to tell stories, not sanitised. Create a comprehensive website of the WWI history http://www.firstworldwar.govt.nz. Aims: Public engagement, preservation of our heritage, creation of new interpretations of our history, international connections.

Funding opportunities available - applications close Nov 2012, May 2013. Have created symbol and official name for even (available on website). Programme office no mandate or intention to organise everything. Providing support for things but mostly facilitating activities elsewhere.

What does the centenary mean for us as GLAM institutions?

Of note: photographs taken by NZers before 1944 are probably out of copyright.

Could be good to get together, figure out what we've got and what's out there, then pulling it together in meaningful ways. What story will we tell the future about this centenary? (eg people using Twibbons as people in the first Anzac Day commemoration wore hats?) An opportunity for the GLAM sector to shine especially if we work together / collaborate.

Private mailing list available to discuss plans - contact the programme office for info.

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Douglas: working on Cenotaph redevelopment. Cenotaph is a biographical database for NZers who served in war. Records for most of 100,000 NZers who fought overseas and have died. Records may have details and photos, or may only have name rank and serial number.

Will keep a page per soldier but jazz it up a bit and add other entry points - maps, battalions, battles. Could have much more content available out in the GLAM sector. GLAM could contribute; links could go both ways. Users could contribute info/photos about family. Crowdsource research, digitisation, transcriptions, stories both typed and audiovisual, corrections (eg bad machine data matching, mistakes in official records, soldiers giving wrong date of birth). Provide data (vocabularies, authoritative data, international data, linked data) back to institutions. Make databases available to academic research. Will be complicated so hope to partner with DigitalNZ.

Curly questions:

• scope (which people, which wars?)
• centralisation - should it all be on Cenotaph or should it link out?
• ownership
• provenance - how do we make sure we know which data is curated, which crowdsourced, etc?

Note service numbers aren't unique but can use Cenotaph number which should (hopefully!) be permanent.

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Q: Data going to institutions and academics but back to users who contributed it. Will we see an Open API?
A: Hope so but will be curly as integrate data from various sources.

Q: How do we turn commemoration into something inclusive of all NZers including those whose ancestors fought on other side?
A: We're just one project among many all around the world. There are other ways into the centenary than Cenotaph eg life a hundred years ago.

Q: Is there an index to conscientious objectors?
--Apparently there's one in the Gazettes.

Q: Can you commit to the Cenotaph ID being permanent?
A: Yes, so commits. <audience applause>

Ways of seeing: collections, stories, language and place #ndf2012

Ways of seeing: collections, stories, language and place
Eleanor Whitworth, Arts Victoria
http://cv.vic.gov.au/stories/map/melbourne/
Culture Victoria has worked closely with indigenous communities to share indigenous cultural material and stories. The indigenous culture theme is one of the most visited sections on the Culture Victoria website. When we implemented the ‘browse our content by location’ search function, we thought carefully about the implications for representing indigenous content.
Language is not a sole determiner of personal heritage, but it is a significant one. Unlike New Zealand, where Māori is an official language, Australia currently has around 150 indigenous languages; none are official, and most are under threat. As Aboriginal communities identify connection to country and culture via language group, mapping our indigenous material to a single point that referenced a Western place name would have been grossly insufficient.
This presentation will cover our partnership with the Koorie Heritage Trust to map our content to the widely recognised 38 language regions in Victoria, including the decisions we made on representing borders and dealing with multiple spellings. The presentation will also provide examples of the power of cultural collections to foster connection and collaboration between museums and traditional owners; support intangible heritage; and link objects with stories and place.

Starts asking "Where are you from?" and plays clip YouTube clip Jimmy Little Yorta Yorta man

Eleanor would answer with a point; Jimmy with an area. She'd see the country as divided into large chunks and needs a point to give specificity; he'd see it as collection of language areas: http://www.abc.net.au/indigenous/map/

Culture Victoria has collections and stories. Group stories under broad themes; link stories; search stories by location.

Collaboration with Koorie Heritage Trust. Each artwork accompanied by story, noting storyteller and language group. Language groups are strong identifiers for place so logical to extend browse-by-location function to include language groups. Used Gazetteer of Australian Placenames to help mapping - pragmatic but not always optimal as pinpoints area by geographic centre. Language groups aren't point, they're areas.

Problem #1: borders. This project is a "Victoria" project but this isn't how indigenous people would see the area. Decided to include 38 groups that broadly overlap state of Victoria.

Problem #2: borders. How to determine areas of language groups? They change! Looked at three maps - interesting that over time they seem to become less detailed. Decided not to show visible borders - seemed best way to acknowledge fluidity. But still needed to determine for purposes of database/searching. Used maps, created polygons to overlay on map. Sometimes had to go by eye. Sent lat/long data to someone to create the polygon on the map. Some regions overlap a little, or a lot. Checked, refined.

Also had to consider spelling variants - phonetic interpretations. Some identify with one or another so system had to cope with all.

At the moment can only search by location but hope to add search by language group.

Did this exercise because had something to attach to the mapping: the stories.

Look at the stories on the website (eg the possum skin cloaks - which skins were from New Zealand as illegal to kill possums in Australia whereas encouraged here...)

Q: Can you tell us about the consultation you did?
A: Koorie Heritage Trust is made up largely of Aboriginal people - close relationship with communities. Lots of discussion about shapes as very sensitive, but mostly driven by community.

Q: Very Western structured presentation on website cf traditional storytelling cycle.
A: Some limits due to funding. But it's the content that's the cycle - the story circles around. This conference has raised questions of how you present data, present linking systems, in an interface that's fluid and flexible - emerging technologies. Definitely aim to increase interactivity.

Going mobile: lessons learned #ndf2012

Going mobile: lessons learned
Francesca Ford and Brooke Carson-Ewart, Art Gallery of NSW
Over the past year the Art Gallery of NSW have designed and built new apps to deliver rich content via mobile phone and tablet devices. We now have a mobile website and visitor iOS app; we have also produced the first two in a planned series of iPad apps focussing on different parts of the collection. Responding quickly to internal and external demands to deliver content via new devices and in new ways has been an incredible challenge. Along the way we’ve made plenty of mistakes and continuously revise our way forward, we’d like to demonstrate what we’ve built so far and tell the story of how we got there.

Built new CMS in 2010 and wanted new web presence. Built with only desktop users in mind and only later started thinking about mobile devices. At first hard for staff to imagine that they didn't represent the wider world.

2010 "The First Emperor" was their first mobile exhibition app - downloaded 13,000 times. Positioned mobile apps as a marketing tool but wanted to created something longer lasting.

"The MOMA Effect" = keeping up with the Joneses. Helps show value of these apps to people unfamiliar with tech. Created a benchmarking document which was powerful in convincing executive and trust to put money into these projects.

"Contemporary" was first iPad app. New gallery construction allowed them to add wifi capability so people could use mobile apps in the gallery. Had iPads with headphones available for users. Decided not to lock them down - "knew we were asking for trouble" but wanted to see what happened. Older users avoided touching iPads or engaged only with default view. Younger users would close down exhibit app and use others eg photo app. Played with settings to change background image, language, generally personalise it. Others tried to download games, apps, music from the iTunes store. Eye-opening and sometimes inspiring - but in the end couldn't leave them unlocked.

Didn't want to make iPads into touchscreen kiosks either so worked with people to enable people to pick them up and use them as iPads. Setup isn't foolproof and apps did crash. Have learned to live with fact that things don't always work. Gallery service officers have learned to stand back and let people experiment.

The "Mona (sp? Moaner?) Effect" - "I love this but I don't know why. I want to create something the same but completely different".

In the space of one month went from having to campaign hard to do anything to having everyone wanting them to do things, so had to come up with a way to manage it sustainably.

"First Emperor" app was expensive and though it's still on the app store it didn't really have a lifespan beyond the exhibition. And on the other hand, apps also require ongoing maintenance, they don't just end when the exhibition does.

Created mobile site - so many opinions that it could have ended up as a replication of the main site, but wanted to break away from this. Had to build fast so no time for community signoff on every decision ("which is a good thing...")

Thought Android users would be glad for a mobile site but found out they didn't think this substituted for an app. Initial design was also rejected and had to go back to drawing board rapidly.

Had to get wifi working across whole gallery, not just one space. Challenging but the hardest part was convincing IT it could and should be done and wouldn't result in users coming in to download Twilight. Currently 80% wifi coverage, aiming at 100%.

Effective usertesting with no resources? Don't underestimate informal and impromptu testing - got a lot out of watching users use tools. IPads got dirty at end of day. (Note: white backgrounds show fewer fingerprints than black ones.) Users happy to give opinions especially if they don't like it!

Marketing another challenge especially with budgets shrinking. Often marketing department is genuinely shocked and surprised that media is interested in this news!

Want to do more - geolocation, mobile tours, digitising print catalogues.

The Future of Products #ndf2012

The Future of Products
Dave ten Have, Ponoko, davetenhave
How digital fabrication and distributed manufacturing changes the way products are designed and used.

We sit at the centre of a supercollider - social, cultural and technical changes in the way things are made. The orthodox of getting something made on the other side of the world is changing. Looping back around to the way things used to be made - by ourselves. A manner focused on relevance, "customer of one".

What if the carbon component of a product/transportation were transparent, priced into the product? How do you design a factory with all we know today?

Keep the point of instantiation as close to point of consumption as possible. Instead of putting factory in China, smear it across the surface of the Earth. A distributed manufacturing system.

Built the Ponoko platform made up of

• a catalogue of digital product designs
• catalogue of materials
• digital fabrication hardware (eg 3d printing but other tools too)
• buyers

This last part is the hard part. Etsy was and remains dominant in this space...

At core, system is a file checking mechanism. Designed a design language - design checking in order to allow credit card charging. Have relationships with eg electronics components producers so people can develop very complex products.

Achievements: Have moved amateurs to professionals - people using this to run their own business. Tapped into inter-generational shift and cultural shift around the maker movement.

Diagram showing level of need of something crossed with degree of effort to create it - intersection is point of relevance.

Use the network to give you reach. Move fast, iterate, eschew IP protection. Quotes someone saying "If I were to apply for a patent, by the time I got it I'd be onto my 10th product."

Someone using Kickstarter to determine whether people want it and whether people would fund it. TechShop for local prototyping, fabrication, and Ponoko for digital prototyping and fabrication.

Future of products - that people can build their physical environment in same way as digital environment.

The tales we can tell #ndf2012

The tales we can tell
Tim Sherratt and Chris McDowall
The growing proliferation of digital sources provides opportunities to view the past in different ways. We can analyse textual content of documents, extract and compare information from images, and build all manner of impressive graphs and visualisations to discern new patterns and insights. But this data has its origins in human activity. Behind each data point is a multitude of stories, as different as they are the same. By abstracting these experiences, the world of big data can become detached and alienating. How do we take advantage of quantitative techniques for contextualisation while holding on to the differences, the anomalies, the contradictions that continue to nourish and intrigue us?
Using examples drawn from a variety of collections and projects, Tim and Chris will investigate ways of bringing the two perspectives together. How can we construct interfaces that enable us to move freely across gulfs of scale and meaning? How can we present online narratives that embed multiple contexts? How can we use machine- readable data to frame and enrich our human-sized stories?

Tim: What happens when we bring stories and data together?

The excitement of linked open data is about making meaning. Explore, wonder, linger, sometimes stumble. The frustration of linked open data is that we talk as if it was all just engineering - a big industrial plumbing project. Can instead be a craft, created with love - or in anger. Linked open data will be a success not when we've linked everything to DBpedia, but when we've created thriving communities.

Western tradition equates knowledge with accumulation. Linked data promises Lots More Stuff. It'd be a tragedy if all we ended up with was a bigger database or better search engine. Want enriched stories, embedded meaning.

Did a presentation once adding triples - but presentation and triples were still separate. Want to create something not with a platform ("sneaky server-side stuff"), something anyone could do. Plain text, no markup. Hacked together javascript to work with text in document, get data from elsewhere, and: Live demo. Script inspects text onscreen and displays visible entities to the right. (The audience is audibly wowed.) Right now most data comes from within document, but sometimes only includes an identifier and pulls info from other sources. Rough demo and long to do list - but gives ideas on how to create data-rich stories.

Just used HTML, RDFA, and some javascript libraries. Wanted it to be accessible. "Access" not just the power to consume but also the power to create. Doesn't want to live in a world where data is something other people collect for us. Wants "slow data". Not the giant global graph, but data artisans hand-crafting stories into a messy tapestry.

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Chris: Showing DigitalNZ listing thumbnails which link to institutional landing pages. Thinks it's great if you know what you're looking for. Tells of being in museum - not looking for a specific thing but just exploring. When online, don't want to look at a postage stamp.

On a screen there's so little real estate. Most compelling part of an image is typically the face. So took images (all 21,000 of them) and passed through OpenCV to extract 16,500 faces. Started experimenting with tile placement algorithms.

Composited images into a single image (in five clusters eg the area of soldiers' faces) displayed with a maptiler interface: can zoom out to full mosaic or zoom into individual image. Wants online but first needs to add a metadata overlay and a clickthrough to source.

Has questions: Is this useful? Would this scale? Does this automatic cropping respect the images?

Sembl, the game of resemblance #ndf2012

Sembl, the game of resemblance
Catherine Styles, @cathstyles
Sembl is a powerful system for thinking in a playful, dialogic, creative way. Cath will introduce Sembl through its initial manifestation as a real-time group adventure game at the National Museum of Australia, and explore how its play cultivates polyphonic, associative thinking, and new ways of knowing. She will explain where the game comes from and speculate on where it could go, in physical museum space but especially on the web, as an engine of open and linked data, and a game- based social learning network.
This game of resemblance has been gestating a long time, so Cath is stoked to share the story of its emergence.

[ETA: Cath's own images, notes and clips from the presentation.]

Sembl
Game derives from Charles Cameron's "Hipbone Game" who got the idea from Herman Hesse's "Glass Bead Game".

Started as an iPad game at National Library of Australia. Users make connections between objects (a branding iron and a breastplate "label bodies"; leg irons and a Welsh organ both "involve keys"), which are then rated according to how interesting they are. What makes a resemblance interesting? Makes you think about things in different ways.

Developed on paper, tested with kids, then moved to a digital prototype and tested with same kids. This got them even more interested in getting into the museum itself.

Co-authorship, radical trust, open authority, new epistemology. Meaning not just imposed by museum, created by visitors. Game provides structure for dialogue between museum and visitor and among visitors.

linked data --- linked link data
identy --- similarity
logical --- analogical
prescribed --- freeform
comprehensive --- generative

Those creating network links learn network thinking.

"You kill what you categorise." @ffunch
"Tell all the truth but tell it slant" - Emily Dickinson

Image of an exhibit colocating slave shackles with fine silverware

Open Museum had a game where users posted "this image is similar to that" until the chain of images looped around to the first image again.

"Every move you make is a futher link in the pattern that connects. Every move you make is a creative leap." - Charles Cameron on Sembl

Beyond social #ndf2012

Beyond Social
DK @justadandak
If social (media) is no longer the new shiny set of tools that everyone gasps at then what are the next set of questions? In this fast-paced session, DK will balance his presentation with overarching cross-sector 'big picture' strategies right through to platform-specific tools and techniques which deliver.
DK (yes, just a D and a K) is a social media advisor who has helped people like UNICEF, BBC, the Gates Foundation, Welsh National Assembly etc. He lives on the internet at justadandak.com. @justadandak

Not going to talk about "Why Twitter is cool" because assumes we already know that.

Shows interactive TV from 1953 Winky Dink where kids had printouts and at some point in show it told them to join the dots.

April 20th someone became first person to edit Wikipedia 1,000,000 times - rewarded by Wikipedia with a day named for him.

Quick dirty simple ideas for museums (people are already aggregating stuff for you- why not borrow/steal/embed existing work?). Problem is at conference people get excited and then realise they have to go back to work.

"Culture eats strategy for lunch" - Peter Drucker. We need a culture that embraces social media - it's not one person's job. Doesn't mean everyone needs a Twitter account, but everyone needs to embrace idea.

(Lots of animated gifs in this slideshow.)

We need to become a lot more curious about other people's work. Not just within GLAM but outside the sector. Social media lets us do that with RSS feeds.

Currently we think of our website as a destination. But the most popular places on the planet are not destinations, they're intersections. Google's popular but we don't go there to stay there - we go there to go somewhere else. Same with Twitter. We should be an "intersection of amazingness".

"Trust people to know that there's a back button on their browser."

Recommends Rework by Fried. DK wrote notes as read it summarising it, posted to blog. Two weeks later retweeted by author (who "could have gone a different way with that") and got tens of thousands of hits on his blog - and was then remixed by someone else adding colour; and then someone in Sweden remixed that into a more corporate-style format. Nothing the author could have planned!

Ideas - "Social media Tuesday" once a month for social media geeks to get together over lunch and share - build culture

For a long time Mr Potato was sold without the potato because they assumed you already had one.

Clip of William Gibson talking about how we can get a bit "iPads, meh. gene therapy, whatever" about the present. DK says instead of looking forward to future, should sometimes focus on using the cool stuff that already exists.

Could ask us "Who's got a social media strategy?" and hands would go up. But what if he asked "Who's got a cultural strategy?"