Mar 23rd 2010 11:45 am Great Lakes THATcamp
This past weekend, I attended Great Lakes THAT Camp. This “unconference” was hosted by my alma mater, Michigan State University. The topic: humanities and technology.
The format was very interesting and different from what I’m used to. We started at 8:30 AM; people shouted out session proposals and if there was enough interest, it was put on the schedule.
Most of the sessions were helpful and I made some great contacts. I’m really excited to work with LookBack Maps. This website overlays historic photographs on a google map to give you a geographic way to search images. It’s very user-friendly and allows for proper citation of the photographs. I’m looking forward to adding to the collection!
The other session I was particularly interested in was a demo of KORA, a content management system created by MSU Matrix. I’m always interested to see the strengths and weaknesses of the different CM systems out there. I had never heard of Kora, so it was a great learning experience. I really like the ability to include GIS coordinates as part of the metadata. Currently, there is no front-end web template, but that could actually be an asset. From working with CONTENTdm, I have seen that sometimes it’s better to have web designers customize a site that fits your institution’s needs rather than try to make your site fit in a auto-generted template. But….that gets into IT support and financial abilities; not all repositories have that option.
All in all, the conference was a great event. I found that I really like the “unconference”….when discussion is expected, I participate much more. It’s also more interesting to hear different opinions and viewpoints than to listen to a speaker lecture on a topic for an hour. It will be interesting to see how archives conferences adapt to this new trend.
Posted by Nicole /