The Archives And Technology Unconference (TAATU) 2010

Halifax, Nova Scotia (June 9, 2010)

A Barcamp for Archivists. A BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. They are designed to be fast-paced, intensive, fun events with discussions, demos and interaction from participants.

TAATU will be a free, laid-back event designed for archivists interested in IT and digital culture to hang out, exchange ideas and have some geeky fun. There is no minimum IT experience requirement, alpha-geeks and wannabe-geeks are equally welcome. The only requirement is that you are expected to participate in some manner, whether that is doing a brief presentation, blogging about the event, facilitating a brainstorming group, participating in the discussion, etc. 

The day's activities includes the annual meeting of the Special Interest Section on Electronic Records. SISER members in particular are urged to come out for the whole day, and not just the SISER meeting - TAATU will be a brainstorm smorgasbord of electronic records issues and discussions on how archives can use digital media to manage collections and connect with clients.

When/Where

This will be a one-day event (June 9, 2010. 10am-4pm) before the Association of Canadian Archivists' conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Dalhousie University Rowe Management Building. Rooms 3087/3089 This is a nice training room with theater seating, tables with power, data screen and white board. The internet is restricted on campus. If you give me your MAC address I can get you a guest account maxnerpg@gov.ns.ca The Library school is a 15 minute stroll from ACA conference hotel. Local contact info Paul Maxner maxnerpg@gov.ns.ca 220-6588 6016 University Ave.

ACA Conference website: http://www.archivists.ca/content/annual-conference.

ACA Conference facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=453738610695

Registration

Simple. Add your name under the list of Participants below. Then you're registered. Due to room size, registration is limited to 40 participants.

 

To keep this a free event, t-shirts are optional and available at cost for $15. Of course, one of the main TAATU attractions is the ability to show of your geek cred to your archives colleagues with an ironic slacker t-shirt. If you want a TAATU2010 t-shirt please add your name and t-shirt size to the T-shirt list below. The $15 will be collected at the start of TAATU.

Participants

1. Peter Van Garderen, Artefactual Systems
2. Evelyn McLellan, Artefactual Systems
3. Paul Maxner, Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management
4. Kelly Stewart, Ummm...Certified ICA-AtoM Trainer (CIT) ?
5. Amanda Hill, Hillbraith Ltd. 
6. Cindy McLellan, SLAIS UBC 
7. Elizabeth Shaffer, SLAIS UBC 
8. Glenn Dingwall, City of Vancouver Archives
9. Jonathan Dorey, SIS McGill (beta-geek, version 1.0, public release -- I still need some polishing) 
10. Trecia Schell, Pictou-Antigonish Regional Library
11. Sara Janes, City of Thunder Bay Archives 
12. Jeremy Heil, Queen's University Archives
13. Rob Hamilton, The Woodbridge Company Limited 
14. Sonya Sherman, Ignition 
15. Tim Hutchinson, University of Saskatchewan Archives 
16. Cynthia Cochrane IMF Archives (first ACA , looking fwd to this part the most)
17. Jonathan Wise, Canadian Museum of Civilization (not a geek...just studying them in their natural habitat) 
18. Misty De Meo, County of Brant Public Library
19. Jennifer Copage, TARR Centre Archives
20. Yvette Hackett, Library and Archives Canada
21. Corinne Rogers, SLAIS UBC
22. Kate Theimer, ArchivesNext
23. Creighton Barrett, Halifax, Nova Scotia
24. Lauren Oostveen, Nova Scotia Archives & Records Management
25. Rodney Carter, RHSJ St. Joseph Region Archives
26. Kyle Handsaeme, MINISIS Inc.
27. Karen White, Council of Nova Scotia Archives
28. Phil Neville, Council of Nova Scotia Archives
29. Susan Gilson, Council of Nova Scotia Archives (unconfirmed)
30. tim atherton, archivist-at-large...?
31. Anna St.Onge, Clara Thomas Archives & Special Collections, York University
32. Sharon White, Belleville-Hastings County Archives (& former ARCHEION Coordinator)
33. Jim Suderman, Toronto

 

 

T-Shirts ($15)

• PLEASE NOTE: T-Shirt order deadline was Friday, April 30. The order is now in.
• FYI: for whoever organizes t-shirts next year, we used this site (easy to design on-line, good price, good customer service): http://www.customink.com/
• The shirts are in and they look great. If you are in town early, stop by the NS Archives 6016 University Ave. and ask for me - Paul Maxner - at the front desk. Give me $15 and I'll give you a great T.

 

1. Peter Van Garderen (L)
2. Evelyn McLellan (S)
3. Paul Maxner (M)
4. Kelly Stewart (M)
5. Elizabeth Shaffer (M)
6. Jonathan Dorey (S) 
7. Trecia Schell (S)
8. Jeremy Heil (L)
9. Rob Hamilton (L)
10. Tim Hutchinson (L) 
11. Cynthia Cochrane (M) 
12. Jonathan Wise (L)
13. Jennifer Copage (M)
14. Corinne Rogers (M)
15. Creighton Barrett (S)
16. Greg Bak (XL)
17. Sara Janes (L)
18. Rodney Carter (XL)
19. Jill Teasley (M)

 

 

fQuestions?

Please post any further questions about this event or issues with this wiki page to the ACA listserv (arcan-l@mailman.srv.ualberta.ca) with the word TAATU somewhere in the subject line.

See also wiki pages from previous two years (when it was called 'ArchivesGeekFest'):

http://barcamp.org/ArchivesGeekFest2009

http://barcamp.org/ArchivesGeekFest

Thanks!

A big thanks to the Association of Canadian Archivists (ACA) for including TAATU in the program and promoting it as part of ACA 2010. Thank you also to NSARM for coordinating local arrangements and Dalhousie Faculty of Information Studies for providing meeting space.

---

 

Agenda 

1. ArchivesGeekfest is dead. Long live TAATU!
2. Introductions
3. Decide on agenda/schedule
4. ...
5. ...
6. ...
7. SISER  meeting

 

Participation Sign-up (please add your name to at least one item in the list below) 

 

Promotion (2) (post notices to arcan-l & Facebook group about how awesome TAATU is and to remind people to register)

1. Greg Bak
2. ...

Local Arrangements: Room, wireless, projector, caffeine (1)

1. Paul Maxner - Room - yes, and a kitchen room beside. Wireless no - send me your MAC address for guest access maxnerpg@gov.ns.ca. Projector yes, Caffeine - hoping to get some fresh Just Us coffee and brew it on site. I'm planning an un-catered un-conference. Order in pizza for lunch?

Event facilitator (1)

1. Peter Van Garderen

Design TAATU T-Shirt (1)

1. Peter Van Garderen

Archives & IT Lightning Talk (possible topics: "Look, my IT rules!", "Help!, my IT sucks!", digitization projects, Archives 2.0, TDRs, putting databases online, web exhibits, archives information system upgrades, electronic records preservation, e-records systems RFPs, blogging, what I learned at conference/course xyz, etc.)

1. Paul Maxner - why was 1. left blank? - Tiled image formats and zooming large images online.
2. Yvette Hackett - show a "history of digital technology" spreadsheet, to help date storage, file formats, etc. 
3. Sonya Sherman - interesting bits from the AIIM 360 conference 
4. Peter Van Garderen - technical overview of Archivematica, an OAIS-compliant digital preservation system that integrates a number of open-source tools (will bring USB key versions of system for participants to fire up on their laptops)
5. Cynthia Cochrane representing an NGO just a few words about that. (If any other NGO Archivists will be present please email me ccochrane@imf.org in the meantime.)
6. Evelyn McLellan - preservation planning in Archivematica, evaluation of significant properties and normalization tools to arrive at format-specific preservation plans
7. Kelly Stewart - How I delivered 7 IT workshops by teleconference to members of my provincial association.  It IS possible and doesn't totally suck! 
8. Sara Janes - Online exhibts and their end users 
9. Misty De Meo - book digitization on a shoestring

Group Brainstorming

1. [insert an Archives & IT question you would like to put out to an informal, group discussion]
2. ...
3. ...

Post a TAATU summary to this wiki, ARCAN-L, Canadian Archivists Blog, and the ACA Bulletin (3)

1. Creighton Barrett
2. Jonathan Dorey 
3. ...

 

Post TAATU photos to this wiki and/or Flikr

  1. Jeremy Heil

 

Facilitate Archives & IT Haiku group writing

1. Tim Hutchinson 

    

    

 

Prepare Powerpoint Kareoke presentation

1. Glenn Dingwall
2. Jeremy Heil

   

 

 

Compete in Powerpoint Kareoke

1. Jonathan Dorey – Why not!
2. Jim Suderman - I had fun last time.  If some is good, more must be better.

 

Buy silly prize for winners of Powerpoint Kareoke & IT Balderdash

1. ...

 

Collect pictures for "add a funny caption to archival photos" game

1. Kate Theimer
2. ...
3. ...

 

???? (please add your own suggestions)

 

Sara Janes would appreciate it very much if you participated in this short survey (only 5 questions! super-easy!) If the results are interesting they'll be part of a presentation.

 

Suggested Activities

Guess the Avatar

1. Create and upload your avatar to the wiki, but keep them anonymous! (see http://simpsonizeme.com/ or http://www.doppelme.com/create/)
1.  
2.               c.
2.  
3. Review/revise agenda
4. Game(s)
1. Battledecks/PowerPoint Karaoke: what is Battledecks/Powerpoint Karaoke? Someone prepares a PowerPoint deck of random or related slides. No more than 10. Usually from some obscure, pre-existing presentation. Another person who has never seen the presentation before, pretends its theirs and 'sells it' to the audience. The hilarity ensues as the presenter tries to keep some coherent message to the whole thing without knowing what slide will pop-up next. Two presentations/presenters. Audience votes for winner. Winner gets lame prize (e.g. stuffed toy unicorn).

   a great example from DemoCampVancouver03: http://www.video.ca/video.php?id=1366004857

2. Archives & IT Haiku: In 2008 we did an Archives & IT quiz, which was awesome (at least from my perspective - I won a toothbrush! - jer.).  In 2009, we tried to define a list of awkward tech words and acronyms, with points awarded for a) accuracy, or b) originality (or best laugh). For 2010, we propose a group effort to create Archives & IT Haiku. You may be familiar with Haiku error messages, e.g. see http://www.netlingo.com/word/haiku-poetry-error-messages.php (note: the idea that they actually use these in Japan has been debunked,, just in case there was any confusion). For our game, we suggest breaking into groups of 3-4, with each group to write one or two Haikus and read back to the whole crowd, with the requirement that it somehow involves Archives & IT.
3. Add a funny caption to archival photos: title says it all, the only question is which unsuspecting photo collections will we troll for fodder?
5. Archives & IT Lightning Talks
1. short 10-15 min presentations
2. PowerPoint, demos and/or just a steady stream of chatter
3. audience feedback/questions during presentation
4. possible topics: "Look, my IT rules!", "Help!, my IT sucks!", digitization projects, Archives 2.0, TDRs, putting databases online, web exhibits, archives information system upgrades, electronic records preservation, e-records systems RFPs, blogging, what I learned at conference/course xyz, etc.
5. I (Jim) could talk about one of two things of current interest to me (no slides) if there's enough interest:  1) enterprise architecture - who's doing it? what's it good for?  etc.; 2) ways of getting our hands dirty - "I don't have a system but want to find out more details about..."  Re #1: Toronto's in the throes of developing EDRMS requirements and there's now an architecture checkpoint.  Curiously, architecture people are telling me what things are records and what are not.   Re #2:  I've made formal and informal proposals for digital sandboxes.  Responses are usually good from IT people until it comes down to putting up the fence.  Curiously, responses are usually bad from policy people.
   
6. Hackfest/Group Brainstorm Projects - break up into groups, report back at end of afternoon
1. eg, fun: functional requirements for the world's worst Archives IT system/website (hint: good way to figure out what the ideal system is by flipping it around)
2. eg, geekie: add a GoogleMap mashup to your online archival descriptions
3. eg, serious: let's solve this pesky little appraisal of electronic records problem, once and for all.
4. please propose more (nothing formal expected, feel free to use something from work, a good way to get feedback and actual work done on existing, in-progress projects)