Two for the price of one

Hello! My semester is rapidly drawing to a close and my thoughts are turning to THATCamp and London…I’d like to suggest two sessions for this weekend: one I enjoyed from last year and one based on some of my current thoughts and research.

Last year, we had a great FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) show-and-tell session which I believe was proposed by Josh Wells (@evolvedtech. Will he be in attendance this year?). I would like to put in an early plug for having this session again, as it was awesome and introduced me to some cool programs I had not known about. We created a shared Google Docs presentation (docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AexaunSaZwZEZGczN3B0NjRfMjI2Z2d0cHJqZmc&authkey=CMCSxvQN) which is also totally rad…

The other idea I’ve got kicking around in my head has something to do with user engagement across the cultural heritage sector. I’d love to have a discussion with fellow THATCampers about the ways in which we all use online communities and social networks professionally and personally to encourage positive interactions around cultural heritage materials. My current position is within the archival community, but I would love to talk to people at LAM institutions, as well as others who, for example, use Flickr Commons images. A new blog post from our American Collector in Chief blogs.archives.gov/aotus/?p=4148 reaffirms NARA’s commitment to user engagement through social media; what are other people’s experiences doing this kind of work?