Digital Content & Online Exhibits in Donor Development

Editor's Notes

• #2: Hello! I’m Jessica Marcetti. I am the Collections Coordinator for Special and Area Studies Collections at UF’s Smathers Libraries. In my position I wear two hats. One is working with all of the special and area studies collections on digitization projects. And the other is managing the Panama Canal Museum Collection. I’ve been working with this collection since 2012, when it was supported separately by an IMLS grant. And now, as it has been integrated into the whole of Special and Area Studies. So it’s mainly this aspect– working with the Panama Canal Museum Collection– and managing the relationships with donor communities that are associated with a collection like this– that we’ll be talking about today. Chelsea gave such a great introduction to Metadata. And I know a lot of you may have been intimidated by the term “metadata” or by the process of adding and using it. Well, imagine how your donors feel. I’m speaking more specifically about donors of materials, rather than money, though there is often a lot of overlap. Digital collections and formal metadata can be a lot to take in. But now that you have a digital collection, and some really great metadata, you are have a lot of resources at your disposal to create and strengthen your relationships with the folks who may be most interested in your collections.
• #3: So how many of you had to do this project in high school, where you were given an egg, and had to keep it safe for a day (or a week or whatever) like it was a baby? Well, I went to Catholic high school, and we didn’t talk about those kinds of things. But something similar happened in 2012, when the Smathers Libraries took custody of the Panama Canal Museum’s whole collection. Because with that collection, came a community of donors and constituents. And that community and their feelings of personal connection to this collection, well, that’s my egg. So think back to high school again. And what did you do for that egg? You probably put it in a little egg carton or a box with some cotton, or paper, or something soft around it to keep it from breaking. Some material to fill the space and sustain the life of that egg, while you carried it around at school all day. So to sustain the relationships with our Panama Canal Museum donor and constituent community, we are our using digital collections and online exhibits to fill that space and keep these relationships safe and alive.
• #4: And there is a lot of space to fill. I know that many donors we interact with will drop off their materials and cut ties as soon as the deed of gift is signed. But our relationship with the Panama Canal Museum community is much more than that. This highly nostalgic and personal collection was very difficult for these donors to part with. Maybe you have a donor or group of donors who wants to maintain a close a connection to the materials they gave? In our case, with the Panama Canal Museum Collection, a lot of time has been invested in establishing a trust between the community and the libraries. We have worked toward this in a lot of ways, but the most visible and, I think, the most impactful is through the digital collection and online exhibits. This may not seem revolutionary to us, in the library field. Of course an online presence will increase the visibility of our collections. But for a community who feels like the materials they spent years collecting and stewarding are no longer within their reach, this kind of online visibility can really help us to enrich relationships with our donors. Without online components like the Centennial Exhibits, or the digitized Yearbooks collection, I think the community would have felt irreparably disconnected from their collections and thus, disconnected from us– which, as the new stewards of this very personal collection, would be a real detriment to its use here at the libraries.
• #5: So as we think about sustaining a collection and maintaining donor relationships, it becomes clear that digital collections and other online components are really naturally set up for this. Any time we allow a user to click “share”, or email or like, we are extending the web of constituents who may turn into donors. And this same system not only builds your donor base, but also strengthens the relationships that our existing donors have with the library, AND with each other. Our Panama Canal Museum Collection is a heavily nostalgic collection, and nostalgia is indulged socially. So giving opportunities for this community to continue engaging socially with the collection was extremely important to sustaining our relationship with the community (which really means, helping them sustain their connection to the collection.) This is why it was so important to create means for them to stay connected to the collection in ways that were meaningful for them, as well as sustainable for us.
• #6: For this collection, the PCMC Blog is the biggest way we have been able to sustain this. Using just a simple wordpress template, you can create a friendly space for the community to reconnect with the collection. Digital collections are wonderful and have incredible research applications. But for a community of people that are in their 70’s and 80’s, an interface like that can be really daunting. With a blog, users can subscribe by email to get a notification each time we post an image (which, during the grant period was 5 days a week and is now a little less regular). Because it works like the social media platforms our community was already familiar with, I thought they would be more likely to use it on a regular basis. And it really works well for us as a way to maintain those connections. As you can see, this page doesn’t look all that different from some Digital Collections pages. But it’s a little friendlier than our UFDC interface. Maybe your digital collections are super intuitive and user friendly– then a blog like this may not add much in terms of usability and access points. But as a companion to our digital collection interface, this is a little friendlier and much more participatory– which was the mail goal of the project.
• #7: This post about Curundu Elementary School is a great example of the type of ongoing community engagement. The original post is from June of 2014, but the most recent comment on it is from a few days ago. We can also see that someone has shared it on their Facebook. For a group of donors that so highly values their social connections, this type of online access and engagement can be extremely important. Now, could a group of patrons come into the library, request this image in the reading room, and wax nostalgic about it? Sure, of course they can– that type of access has always been available to them. But one of the main concerns for this particular community is passing a knowledge of and interest in the Panama Canal and Canal Zone to younger generations. So making parts of the collection so easily sharable, will go a long way in accomplishing that, if users can select items and share them with friends, family, and grandchildren by email or social media. And the younger family and friends who are receiving those links now have a direct connection back to our collection to explore it on their own, experience its value as a connection to their own lives. And possiblly become motivated to support us in the future.
• #8: For the Panama Canal Museum Collection, a blog works really well. It allows our users to contribute metadata through the comments section, without having to use our Sobek system, which is very complex. It’s also fairly static. It’s easily searchable and has a sense of permanence to it that some other social media do not. It sort of looks and feels like a museum exhibit. And given the success of our online exhibits– that was a good thing.
• #9: Online exhibits offer a more formal connection to your digital collections than a blog might, but they can serve the important function of keeping the collection materials visible. Because exhibits require narrative– or a story told by the chosen objects– it’s a great access point for casual users rather than researchers. Users can view the items, learn about them, and see how they fit in with the rest of the collection, without doing any digging to get there– everything is laid out in a way that makes sense to someone who may not be an expert in the material (or an expert in searching the digital collections). I know our community of donors often asks me how their items are being used. The online exhibits are a great way to show that their materials are visible within in the libraries and are a part of something larger, like an exhibit. When I say their items are frequently accessed by researchers, they don’t always know that that means, really. But showing a link like this really makes the statement that your donation is valued and it is contributing to what we do at the library. And then, of course, they can share the link.
• #10: For the Panama Canal Museum Collection, blogs and online exhibits work really well. The blog allows our users to contribute metadata through the comments section, without having to use our Sobek system, which is very complex. It’s also fairly static and easily searchable. It’s social without being overwhelming and busy. The online exhibits offer great visibility of the collection, and have a feeling of permanence to them, which a lot of other platforms don’t offer. But there are only 1000 different ways you can leverage your digital collections to connect with your donors– or any community. Remember, you don’t need to use ALL of these. I’ve given you a handout with some of the most popular social media platforms that you may consider using to share your digital collections. When you’re deciding what platform to use, try to begin with the end in mind– what are you really hoping to accomplish. You don’t have to be on Twitter just because your grad student thinks you should.
• #11: If all you want to do is share images of your materials, then you can select a platform that does only that.
• #12: Maybe you’ve digitized a collection of videos and can share some clips.
• #13: Of you’ve got a little bit of everything to share and need a platform that can support lots of different media and links.
• #14: If you’re not sure where to start the conversation– try it with 140 characters and let the community talk back.
• #15: The Panama Canal Museum Collection is somewhat unique, in that not all collections are this personal and nostalgic. And certainly not every collection comes with such an engaged community of constituents. But I think a lot of gifts that come into our libraries are coming from individual donors or family members, and many of those donors may want to maintain a connection to their materials in some way. So I encourage you to provide an access point to your collections that encourages shareability to some extent. This small act of continuing to connect with something they have given away, may encourage them to share even more items, of even greater research value with the libraries. I don’t have enough time today to address each way in which a strong digital presence has enriched our relationships with our donors. But it does go beyond share buttons to projects like crowdsourcing metadata or co-producing exhibit content. Not all eggs need the same amount of cushion. But each one IS breakable. And digital content may be just the thing you need to keep those relationships comfortable, safe, and sustainable into the future.