During my survey of these sites, I located some features that would be useful for the VRC to implement. These include
- Incorporating new user orientations to the collection (Berkeley). I think that it would be really useful to have an orientation to the VRC during the School of Architecture's orientation for first-year students.
- Filtering image collection searches to certain collections. See Michigan's site for an example.
- Adding the Digital Request Form online as a downloadable PDF (Ohio State)
- Site of the month (Columbia). They have some really great sites, but they haven't added a site for a few months, so even though I think that if the VRC did something similar, it is important to have a structure in place for maintaining it.
- Image Instruction Blog (Cornell). This blog contains interesting information about image resources, and it could be a useful model for the VRC.
- Arts Library Blog (Yale). This blog focuses on Yale news as well as art and architecture news posted in the New York Times and other news sources.
I also looked at some postings from the Librarian-in-Black, and she discussed how one of her reviews on a restaurant review site was selected as the Review of the Week. I think that something of this nature would be good to incorporate in the DASe database. Having a
"review of the week" might create more interest in the VRC's online collection. This feature is something that the VRC should definitely consider implementing within the next couple years.
During the next two weeks I'm going to work on writing the Marketing Plan and my first task is to craft the goals of the Marketing Plan as it relates to the VRC's strategic. Then, I will discuss how the Web 2.0 technologies discussed in the blog can help the VRC accomplish its goals.
