Access to records in this century means digital access. For many people, if it is not online, it doesn’t exist. The use of social media to increase access is the new norm. NARA has been going after innovative tools and projects that increase digital access to our records, including projects that invite public participation. We are developing a Citizen Archivist Dashboard that will encourage the public to pitch in via social media tools on a number of our projects. You will hear about these and more of our projects at next week’s McGowan Forum, “What’s Next in the Social Media Revolution.”
The Forum is also intended to explore issues well beyond our current innovations, and to provide a discussion of what’s next in social media innovation within government and beyond. Our moderator for the evening is Alex Howard, the Government 2.0 correspondent for O’Reilly Media. Alex is @digiphile on Twitter, with over 100,000 followers on that social media platform alone.
Panelists include:
- Macon Phillips, the White House Director of New Media
- David Weinberger, senior researcher at the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society
- Pam Wright, Chief Digital Access Strategist at the National Archives
So come on over to the McGowan Forum Friday night, bring your inquisitive friends, and find out what’s next.
Details:
Friday, November 4, at 7 p.m.
William G. McGowan Theater
Seventh Annual William G. McGowan Forum on Communications
What’s Next in the Social Media Revolution?
A Social Media Fair and reception will take place in the theater lobbies prior to the program from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Doors will open at 5:15 p.m.
Sounds like this is going to be a fantasic fourm with a diverse, expert panel. Is there any chance that you will be webcasting or recording this event for those that may not be able to travel to participate in person. I would be willing to dontate my time to assist with the setup, at least for the pieces that can be done remotely. Thanks,
Rick
Hi, Rick. Thank you for your interest. We will not be streaming the forum, but please look for a video of the event on our YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/usnationalarchives) about a week or so later. I’ll also be live tweeting the forum, and you can follow it at @USNatArchives and #McGowan2011. I hope these options will allow you to join us virtually.
Adam
Social Media Team
Note for site admin: Sounds like a great event on November 4. Small matter but I don’t want anyone to miss the info about the forum. Could you add the customary link and make the Read All clickable from the blog’s top page, as it usually is on other posts?
This sounds like a great idea. Will the Citizen Archivist Dashboard be released as open source? I guess many other organizations could benefit from a tool like this.
Hi Peter,
Thank you for your comment. The Citizen Archivist Dashboard is not a singular tool, but rather a place for centralization of information about a number of activities, many of which are already open source, like Flickr, Wikipedia, and WikiSource. We are using Drupal for the Transcription Pilot, and using modules to build the dashboard, and we can certainly share the modules we used following launch of the dashboard.
Thanks for your interest!
Pam
Pamela Wright
Chief Digital Access Strategist
National Archives