February Amigos Conference Looks at CONTENTdm

-By Christine Peterson, E-book Project Manager and Continuing Education Librarian

Our February 12 online conference will focus on a specific product from OCLC: CONTENTdm. On its website, OCLC says, "CONTENTdm helps you to make your digital collections fully searchable on the Web, more quickly and easily." For a number of years, Amigos has partnered with OCLC to provide consulting services, and continues to provide training, for this product.

In 2010, Amigos presented its first CONTENTdm online conference. It was very well-received and attendees included both Amigos members and non-members. Since that time, OCLC has presented its own annual CONTENTdm online conference with one exception – this year.

With OCLC's approval, we are hosting this conference as one of our own. Shane Huddleston, CONTENTdm Product Manager, will be our keynote speaker and promises us an update on the software, details on the upcoming release, and a review of the roadmap.

Conference sessions cover a variety of topics, with six of our speakers hailing from Amigos member libraries:

• Jeanette Sewell of the Houston Public Library will discuss unique processes the library developed to create accurate digital representations of postcard and glass plate negative collections.
• Anne Price and Kathy Hardin of the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor will describe their CONTENTdm journey, including successes and failures.
• Cindy Boeke of Southern Methodist University will discuss a survey SMU has developed that helps them better understand outcomes for those that license their objects.
• Adam Northam and Sean Anderson of Texas A&M-Commerce will describe their use of Popcorn.js to provide time-based interactive media for their World War II collection.

We are fortunate to enhance these member-based presentations with others from Illinois State University, Wisconsin Historical Society, University of South Dakota, Western University of Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Washington State University, Huntsville-Madison County Public Library, and the Ohio History Commission. To see all of the programs, go to the conference's website and click on the Schedule tab.

All sessions will be recorded and available to registrants by the end of the conference day. If you have any questions about the conference, please contact me at peterson@amigos.org or 800-843-8482, ext. 2891. We hope you’ll join us!