Do you like this posting? Tell me now!
We had a meeting of the conference planning group for the BIFHSGO conference last Saturday at which I queried if all the questions on the evaluation form we ask attendees to fill out are really useful. On review it seems quite a few could be eliminated without much loss of useful information.
One thing BIFHSGO does right is ask folks to fill out the evaluation form at the end of the conference. It wouldn't make much sense to ask whether they found the information they sought before hearing the presentations.
But that's exactly what LAC is doing with its on-line survey.
Occasionally, just after you enter the site, a form pops up asking if you'll take a five minute survey. One of the questions is along the lines ... did you find the information you came to find. How could you have done?
Ask a silly question ... get a silly answer.
Now we have “the scoop on digitization” at the LAC – in other words the LAC’s plan by any other name. “The Scoop” is found in the LAC publication “Access” which is as close to an annual report as one can get without calling it that. “Access” is full of self congratulatory statements and given its multiple photographic images and glossy nature no cost was spared including the LAC’s “mass digitization program”:
ReplyDeleteCanadians want direct online access to their documentary heritage. 93 percent of them, in fact. Yet only 30 percent of Canadians are satisfied with the quality of Canadian content online. In 2007-2008, Library and Archives Canada began a mass digitization program designed to systematically digitize its collection. During its first five months, the program digitized finding aids to improve access to archival records, as well as city directories, early Canadian literature, maps of Western Canada from the Department of Indian Affairs, late 19th-century naturalization records, photographs related to Great Lake shipping, and records of Sir John A. Macdonald. In 2008-2009 the program will be extended to include other parts of the LAC collection, such as newspapers, finding aids, and official publications such as Hansard.