Hi everyone,
I am now well into my placement at the State Library Foundation and as everything is coming together I am finding my placement really enjoyable. As I came into the organisation in the middle (and busiest period) of a project I had a lot to catch up on. After a lot of time spent reading internal documents and bugging the other staff with questions I now feel like I have enough background knowledge to contribute to the project. The team have been really supportive and the weekly 'Work in Progress' meetings with the whole team have been a huge help.
The main project I have been involved with is 'Our Page in History'. I explained in my first blog but it is basically an interactive website that allows users to record their own 'page in history' and connect to others. The project has a strong Western Australian focus and another lucky intern flew up to Broome for a month at the start of September to engage with the community and get them on board.
With a very small team my placement has been very hands on and I have been left to take initiative and make decisions. I have been enjoying this though as it keeps me busy and I hate having nothing to do! I have been very busy writing and designing all sorts of material for 'Our Page in History'- from postcards to fact sheets and backgrounders. I have been liaising directly with the graphic designer for some of the material and I really underestimated how hard it is to get things looking the way you imagine. It is quite a long process- even if something minor isn't how you imagined you need to get a re-design. The postcards went through at least five versions before we were happy with the product but they are currently being distributed in Broome!
I have also been busy getting content ready for the website launch. After some issues with the timeline for the launch of the website we are now looking at a launch in late October. I will be finished my placement by this point but I am really looking forward to seeing the website live after having so much involvement in the project. I have been scanning a lot of old documents to be added to the website. My supervisor Bronwyn is using her family as an initial profile and she has some amazing photos and documents that have been passed down through her family. Although scanning isn't the most interesting task I was fascinated with the items that she had. Telegrams from WWI, letters from her grandfather in the war and even a letter from the New York Times to her great-grandfather in 1895! These will all be up on the website when we go live and hopefully we can get some more great memories like this from users!
One of my last tasks at the Foundation before I leave will be to develop a communications plan for 'Our Page in History'. With a real shortage of staffing resources nobody has put together a thorough strategy and instead they have just jumped into the 'doing' stage without anything set down on paper. I am really motivated to put together some strategies that will work but I do have reservations about whether they will be carried through. Working in a not-for-profit environment has its challenges and sometimes great ideas are just not feasible because there isn't the staffing or money. Does anybody else doing their placement in a not-for-profit feel the same?
For the communications plan I have been doing a lot of research online into best practices. This has involved reading articles and blogs on how things have been done around the world. At the moment my big focus is on looking at how to encourage people to contribute user generated content. The website is only a 'skeleton' and will rely on subscribers uploading their photos, stories and documents to make the site interesting. I have found this area really interesting- it explains why we are all so addicted to Facebook! If anybody wants to have a read this a great article summing up the topic:
http://www.grannellmarketing.com/articles/MM-UGC.pdf
The Foundation is helping the library out with the Premier's Book Awards next Friday night so I will rubbing shoulders with Colin! Although I won't have much to do with the organisation prior to the event it will be interesting to see how this kind of event works behind the scenes.
The countdown is on until the end of semester, I hope everyone is surviving!
Jaimi Baile
14266621
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