More than 100 attend the Midwest CONTENTdm Users Group Meeting

On March 19 and 20, more than 100 people gathered for the 4th annual Midwest CONTENTdm® Users Group Meeting, hosted by Purdue University Libraries at their West Lafayette campus in Indiana.

Sponsored by OCLC and Backstage Library Works, the 1.5-day meeting provided an opportunity for those using the CONTENTdm Digital Collection Management Software to both learn more from other users, as well share their knowledge.

CONTENTdm users' presentations covered a variety of topics and included creating audio/video collections; uploading images to Flickr to help drive end users to your collections; enhancing existing collections by developing topical, user-focused digital gateways; creating autosuggest and tag clouds; using online video tutorials and podcasts as teaching tools, and much more.

Presenters in this year’s meeting focused on sharing step-by-step directions and in-depth instructions, so participants would have the knowledge and tools to implement what they learned. (Please note that if you are a current CONTENTdm user, you soon will be able to access all the Midwest Users Group Meeting presentations from the CONTENTdm User Support Center.)

[Midwest CONTENTdm Users Group Meeting poster. Images courtesy of Ball State University, Cleveland Public Library, Combined Arms Research Library, Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne, Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis, Purdue University, University of Iowa and University of Louisville.]

In addition, CONTENTdm users could attend two pre-conference workshops. There was a Copyright and Digital Collections workshop taught by attorneys from Purdue University and the University of Louisville. Participants learned the basics of U.S. copyright law and gained a better understanding of how it is applied in both a print and digital world. The second workshop was on CONTENTdm 5 and offered hands-on experience with building collections using the new Project Client.

Current CONTENTdm users are encouraged to attend one of the five CONTENTdm User Group Meetings scheduled later in the year: 
(1) The Western Users Group Meeting, June 4-5 at the University of Nevada, Reno. 
(2) The CONTENTdm User Group Meeting at ALA Annual, July 13 in Chicago.
(3) The Eastern CONTENTdm Users Group Meeting, August 5-7 at Yale University. 
(4) The Southeastern User Group Meeting, October 11-13 at the College of Charleston Libraries, South Carolina.
(5) The Upper Midwest Users Group Meeting, October 29-31 in Madison, WI.

Current CONTENTdm users are welcome to attend any of the upcoming meetings. For more information, please email contentdm@oclc.org.

(2009 03 24)