2017-01-11 Meeting notes

Date

11 Jan 2017

Attendees

• Sherri Berger

• Kelsi Evans

• Christine Kim
• Robin Katz

Goals

• Get to know each other and our respective roles
• Get on the same page about the problem and the needs of the campuses and CDL around this
• Start to envision a way forward for our group

Discussion items

• UCSC has students create exhibitions as final projects - how to work with different staff

• Educational use case is huge - do we address this?

• So much interest in student-generated content

• Community-generated content

• How do physical exhibitions translate to digital space?

• Is Calisphere a service or a vetting process?

• UCI isn’t even there yet for instruction - an exploratory opportunity, is it something we *can* do? - expectations, the type of work that might be required

• A big project for our intern to work on

• Document all that and express expectations for interns

• UCI recap:

• Rotating physical exhibition - not really digital presence

• Can we have students scan objects and make an easy website of it?

• CA Rare Books School class on exhibits

• Meanwhile, UCI is reframing the exhibits committee

• Important to know: can’t create Calisphere exhibits without the content already digital and on Calisphere

• Refocus from general exhibit about National Parks to more local scope

• They split the responsibilities between two interns: 1 physical, 1 digital

• Only being able to use what’s on Calisphere is a limitation

• Intern was 2nd year undergrad - poised, academic maturity, history dept

• Intern had the story she needed to tell, but not the training to tell the story

• How in-depth to get into things?

• She assumed that the audience knew the things she had already researched; she didn’t realize she had the breadth of knowledge she had, and needed to write it out

• What types of questions would researchers have when they approached these materials?

• UCSF experience with Omeka:

• Similar model - you create the digital item first

• Limiting in the sense that some of the stuff you’d include in physical exhibits - e.g. graphic material, logos, etc. - how you group things to make a statement

• How do you make that resonate on a cookie-cutter digital exhibit platform?

• A good deliverable of our group would be some guidance: bulleted list of things to think about in creating these, base requirements

• Multi-institutional questions:

• Does everything need to be owned by one institution?

• Do there need to be base requirements based on scope of exhibitions? - e.g., is Calisphere an appropriate place to do a very subject-specific exhibition? Or do you have to make it broader, like “psychology in the bay area?”

• Narrowness or broadness of topic

• Also technical requirements that Calisphere may not fulfill - is there an option for an institution to case-by-case propose additional development? A clear path for this.

• A marketing component of this

• Recap:
  • Can’t assume it’s only curators writing these things
  • Scoping: what it is, what’s in it?
  • Decision-making and vetting - collection development?; is CDL a publishing house? How do we make sure that Calisphere is trusted and adheres to this? Someone else needs to look at this - who and how?

• Could some exhibitions get a Twitter “seal of approval”?

  • “I’ve seen some horrible student-created exhibitions”

  • Differentiating between user-created exhibitions and curator-created exhibitions

• Physical exhibits have various levels for funding, etc.

• Could there be 3 templates for exhibits?

• A, B, C level templates - e.g. number of items we expect to display, how much text, etc.

• Caught between wanting to market this and get people involved and also saying “we have all these guidelines and standards” -- very awkward position

• Here’s what we would tell people and get them to come in at their commitment level

• If we could clearly articulate mission, vision, values, and purpose for Calisphere exhibition, then we’d be in better shape:

• Is it about giving context to objects? And having an argument?

• Is it to bring material to otherwise be in disparate collections together? Is it about raising questions about historical material?

• Is an exhibition an argument (a-level) or a celebration (b-level)?

• What Christine and Brenna wanted was more documentation on expectations and roles

• We should generate a list of outcomes we want to see

• Mission statement

• Documentation

• Maybe let the models marinate a little - discussion we want to continue

• Everybody find 2-3 examples of things you think are successful or not

Action items

• Sherri Berger: carve out a space on the wiki for this project
• Sherri Berger: identify/schedule a biweekly meeting time
• Sherri Berger, Christine Kim, Kelsi Evans, Robin Katz: brainstorm in a document the outcomes we want to see from this task force: Brainstorm doc: outcomes of this group
• Sherri Berger, Christine Kim, Kelsi Evans, Robin Katz: find 2-3 examples of exhibitions, exhibition programs, etc. you think are successful (or NOT): Brainstorm doc: resources / models / examples