Week of January 28-February 3

RSS Feeds

This week I researched Web 2.0 tools that I learned about in the publication How to Use Web 2.0 in Your Library by Phil Bradley.  I have found the first few chapters on RSS and blogs to be very useful in terms of thinking about how I could leverage these technologies for the Marketing Plan.  This book had some interesting suggestions, including incorporating RSS feeds from a source, such as the New York Times, and incorporating them onto your site.  I also researched RSS providers which allow you to create RSS feeds and to post feeds from multiple sources onto your website.  I have bookmarked these sites on my delicious account, which you can access here.

I explored the Arts feed from the New York Times, and it doesn't seem like it would be the best feed option, if we added RSS feeds to the VRC website.  I think that if I could find a way to incorporate a feed from the magazines Metropolis or Dwell, it would be much more interesting since these magazines tend to focus on the latest trends in architecture, interior design, and sustainable design.  

Blogs

This week I also thought it might be interesting if we incorporated a video blog (vlog) on the VRC's Web site.  There are a number of topics that we could do a vlog on.  It might be really useful to have a short vlog on how to find images through resources available to UT affiliates, such as ARTstor and Digital Archive Services (DASe).  Another interesting vlog would be on how to find maps and we could showcase UT's map collection.   These vlogs could be incorporated into the Web Resources Guide on the VRC's website and they could also be shared with a wider audience via YouTube.  One software that the VRC could purchase to create vlogs is Vlog It, available from Adobe for $29.00.  This software seems very easy to use and the low price tag makes it attractive to use for experimenting with vlog publishing.

The VRC curates and exhibition every semester.  We could use a blog to publicize this exhibition by creating a virtual exhibition in Flickr with images from the exhibition.  Of course, this would depend on several factors, such as copyright and permissions, but it would be another way of connecting users with the VRC's services by using Web 2.0 tools.

Web Analytics

This week I contacted Chris Rankin, the School of Architecture's Webmaster, about obtaining usage statistics for the VRC's Web site.  He is going to send the reports to me next week.  I thought that it would be interesting to evaluate how the VRC's Web site is currently being utilized.  The VRC could also use these statistics to track how traffic to the site evolves as Web 2.0 features are used.  

Additionally, the developer of DASe is going to send me information about how the users of this collection save images in their personalized collections.  This information will be valuable for determining how users are currently using the VRC's images in DASe.

For Next Week

Next week I would like to review the Web sites of the VRC's peer institutions to evaluate how they are leveraging Web 2.0 tools.  I would also like to continue researching Web 2.0 tools and begin writing the Marketing Plan.