EDUCATION AND OUTREACH COMMITTEE:

CHARGES AND WORKPLAN

MIC Education and Outreach Committee Task Forces

The MIC Education and Outreach Committee Task Forces are charged with developing MIC's education and outreach space. MIC E&O Committee members may serve on task forces, but are not required to. There will be three portals: Archivists', General Public, and Science Educators' ("Science Goes to the Movies"). The single archivists portal may be split into separate portals later as community use dictates (but not within the two-year grant-funded Phase One ending September 30, 2004).

The MIC E&O Committee will coordinate and oversee nine task forces:

1. Website design (in consultation with Principle Investigator and Georgia
Tech developer)
2. Outreach (to archives and public)
3. Cataloging (Archivists' Portal)
4. Preservation (Archivists' Portal)
5. Programming (Archivists' Portal)
6. Digital Issues (Archivists' Portal)
7. Access (Archivists' Portal)
8. Small Gauge (could develop material for both Archivists' and General Public portal)
9. General Public Portal
(The Science Goes to the Movies portal will be developed by the Science Educators Advisory Board.)

The E&O Committee will revise this draft workplan in consultation with the Project Manager (pending hire, consult with Grace Agnew and Jane Johnson). The revised workplan will be distributed to AMIA committee and interest group chairs, on AMIA-L and MIC-Announce, and posted on the MIC project website in order to document development and solicit participation.

We have requested a meeting space and time at the AMIA annual conference (November 18-22, 2003, Vancouver, B.C.) for E&O task forces (or those interested in serving on task forces) to convene for a working meeting. The Education and Outreach Committee will develop the agenda for that meeting and coordinate participation.

Think of MIC as "Moving Image Central," one-stop shopping for archivists, educators, and the general public. In addition to its union catalog, archive directory, and cataloging utility, MIC is designed to be a comprehensive resource in the areas of access, cataloging, preservation, copyright, programming, training, etc. See separate descriptions of MIC's education and outreach space from the NSF grant and MIC reports, attached.

For each area, information can be built within MIC (on the MIC website), or can be in the form of a link to another site. While MIC was originally intended to address issues of
preservation and access for moving image materials, it will be inherently interesting for people who simply enjoy searching for films, and thus can serve to publicize the goals and concerns of AMIA to a wider public.

The task forces, under the guidance of the MIC Education and Outreach Committee, will develop the content, links, and placeholders for the education and outreach space. The NSF grant mandates that the E&O space be up and running for use, evaluation, and revision by March 31, 2004.

Suggested charge to all task forces:

· Formulate list of questions your section should answer
· Identify resources to include in your section, e.g.,
o glossaries
o bibliographies
o webliographies
o white papers
o knowledgebase of experts (this is supported by data elements in the Archive Directory database)
o FAQs
o presentations
o calendar of conferences, training opportunities, events
o links to online training
o annotated list of organizations at-a-glance (exclusive of repositories which will be included in the Archive Directory)
o funding opportunities
o oral histories
· Identify existing resources
o on AMIA and other websites
o through AMIA committee and interest group chairs
o at task force members' own institutions
o Determine what resources need to be developed and make assignments
o Formulate introductory text (purpose, audience, how to use, etc.)
o Consider how users will approach website; consider directing users through questions or graphical displays, rather than menu topics
o Gather data
o Submit content, links, placeholders, programming requests

Timeline:

· 31 March 2004: E&O sections built (see "MIC Development milestones" at http://gondolin.rutgers.edu/MIC/)

NOTE: We need to discuss intermediate deadlines and deliverables.

Cataloging (Archivists' Portal)
Charge: in process

Preservation (Archivists' Portal)
Charge: in process

Programming (Archivists' Portal)
Charge: in process

Digital Issues (Archivists' Portal)
Charge: in process

Access (Archivists' Portal)
Charge: in process

Small Gauge (could develop material for both Archivists' and General Public portal)
Charge: in process

Website Design Task Force

Charge: The Website Design Task Force provides guidance to the web designer (developer at Georgia Tech) on the design of individual web pages on the MIC site, elements of the navigation bar, graphic features of the site, etc. The Task Force works with the web designer through the Principle Investigator, Grace Agnew.

General Public Portal

Charge: The General Public Portal Task Force covers that area of most interest to the general public or layperson, and should address commonly asked questions about such issues as access ("How do I get a copy of a film?"), how to donate a collection, basic preservation and troubleshooting ("Care and feeding of your personal collection"), and copyright ("What are all these restrictions, and why?"). It might include a primer on researching moving image documents, or a how-to page with sample customizable letter, educating end users on obtaining rights to use or license footage.

Outreach (to archives and public)

Charge: The Outreach Section Task Force covers outreach across audiences (archivists and general public) and should work in coordination with other task forces as necessary. Resources it should consider for inclusion would include:
o match-making service (to help prospective donors discover and contact the most appropriate archive, based at least in part on queries against the archive directory database)
o mentoring program (to match experienced archivists with organizations with archival collections who lack the expertise to preserve and document the collections)
o speakers' bureau
o web exhibits
o documenting film preservation procedures
o "memorial wall" of moving image materials permanently lost
o "found" wall for new discoveries

OVERVIEW
MIC Education, Outreach, and Research Space
(as described in NSF grant and MIC reports)

MIC's outreach and education space will provide features such as:

1. step-by-step instructions for installing and implementing supported databases and cataloging in supported formats
2. a clearinghouse with links to information on cataloging and preserving moving image materials
3. links to training and conference opportunities, scholarships and grants
4. reference and information sharing via email discussion lists and chat relay
5. a mentoring program for providing archival expertise to small and nontraditional archives, such as corporate archives with small amounts of moving images in their collections
6. an online "match-making" service to facilitate identifying the appropriate archives for archives, corporations and the general public wishing to donate moving image materials to a library or archive.

During the research for this project, many excellent suggestions were received for education, training, outreach, and research. Most archives felt that the MIC should support the goal of universal collection access. Suggestions that support this goal include:

A. Education:

1. Cataloging:

o Glossary, overviews, webliographies and white papers on key metadata concepts such as registries, data elements, controlled vocabularies, format mapping, RDF, and XML.

o A searchable knowledgebase of archivists and archives with expertise in different formats, database designs, etc. (Note: the directory database data elements for cataloging have been designed to support this search).

o Webliographies for metadata and resource discovery formats, such as MARC21, Dublin Core, EAD and MPEG-7.

o A FAQ for metadata formats.

o Presentations and training for major formats, for cataloging in MIC MARC21 Core, Dublin Core and MPEG-7 using MIC-supported database implementations, should be presented regionally and at AMIA national conferences.

o An alert for conferences and training opportunities in each format that are offered by other organizations, such as the SAA workshop on EAD and the OCLC Institute's various metadata and cataloging workshops.

o Integration of the AMIA Cataloging and Documentation Committee liaison program into MIC. Incorporate identified activities into a "Moving Image Organizations at a glance" with other groups, such as OLAC, SAA, ALCTS Media Resources Committee.

o Partnerships with other organizations providing cataloging education, such as OCLC and IMAP, for outreach to small and nontraditional archives currently lacking online cataloging capabilities.

o Links to online training, such as Dublin Core implementation guidelines and XML.

o Funding opportunities for cataloging collections.

o Field-by-field instructions for completing the MIC MARC21 Core and Dublin Core records.

o Links to web-enabled databases for moving image materials cataloged in different formats.

B. Outreach:

1. Outreach to Moving Image Archives

o A "match-making" service for owners of private collections wanting to donate those collections to archives to help them discover and contact the most appropriate archive, based at least in part on queries against the archive directory database.

o A mentoring program, to match experienced archivists with museums, organizations, etc. with archival collections who lack the expertise to preserve and document the collections.

o A speaker's bureau of archivists with experience in different formats, for presentations at local and regional conferences.

o Training in digitizing, streaming, storing and managing digital video files and digital video repositories.

2. Outreach to the public

o As a high-profile website, the MIC has the opportunity to educate the public about the fragility of the nation's moving image materials. A photo essay of a film preservation procedure is one possible web exhibit. A "memorial wall" of moving image materials that are permanently lost is another possibility. The MIC will be inherently interesting for those who enjoy searching for films, etc., and thus can serve to publicize the goals and concerns of AMIA.

o A "how-to" page with sample, customizable letter, educating end users on obtaining rights to use or license footage.

o A primer on researching moving image materials.

o "Virtual reference desk" technologies that dynamically forward reference questions to the appropriate archive, based on knowledgebase attributes, are emerging from the library world. Virtual reference desk technologies should be evaluated and implemented in Phase II or Phase III of MIC Implementation. The Library of Congress and OCLC have partnered in implementing a virtual reference desk technology that could perhaps be implemented for this service.

3. Focused AMIA Community Building

Another innovative suggestion was that the MIC could serve as a forum for focused communities exploring issues with description and access, such as news archives looking at finding aids, archives with digital video assets exploring MPEG-7 and other nontextual indexing strategies, etc. This role could be supported with:

o Dynamic web pages for specific communities, with a federated search screen and durable education and outreach pages to create a portal.

o An "email discussion list" facility that allows any group to establish an email list for discussion of community-level issues. The list discussions could be archived and searchable to benefit any visitor to the website.

C. Research

The MIC has an opportunity to provide an information space for research into improved description, indexing and access methodologies, including:

o Use of the MIC search facility to test new search strategies and displays, particularly the integration of textual and nontextual indexing strategies.

o Collaborations with established AMIA committees, such as the AMIA Preservation Committee to develop a preservation data registry, and with the AMIA Digital Initiatives Committee to explore MPEG-7 and other nontextual indexing for digital files.