1. Have you put a link to your NovaMuse profile on your website yet? If not, now is the time. We've had traffic from 14 contributing museums' websites, so we know this is a fantastic new offering that you can give your audience...and one that really works.
2. If you are sharing information on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media sites, please share artifact links to NovaMuse. When you post photos you are relinquishing all intellectual rights to the host site, whereas sharing a link to NovaMuse gives people the opportunity to see that particular item, and also investigate other aspects of your collection.
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| NovaMuse visitors |
I've never shared any statistics from NovaMuse use, so thought I'd pull a few interesting facts to share. Since the website launch in September we've had visits from 62 countries (from Albania to Zimbabwe) and 774 cities (from Abbotsford to Zaanstad). It's amazing to me that 51 community museums have such a global reach. And while it's pretty cool to see traffic from around the world, the majority of our traffic is from good ol' Nova Scotia Canada. The public is engaged; they're visiting, they're leaving a few comments, and they're telling their friends about the site. That bubbles on the map show where our visits are coming from, and the bigger and brighter the bubble, the more hits from that area. So congrats to everyone on being a success in Nova Scotia. With the site being updated every day with more objects and images, people have a reason to come back, and they definitely are. If this doesn't show the power of cooperative working I don't know what does!
Database Info
This year we set a rather lofty goal of mapping 40,000 records while we work through the Cape Breton, Central, and Northeast region sites. Next year we'll do the same thing with the Southwest region sites, trying to map another 40,000 records. I'm not gonna lie; I'm not sure if we'll hit this mark. We've garnered a reputation for meeting and exceeding our insane goals. So this is one of those blunt moments. Adding georeferences to 80,000 records in two years will only be accomplished if each museum works towards this goal. I know the dating will be fine since that is going very well (very quickly, and lots of records have already been dated). It's the mapping that I'm worried about. As of today we have 9,151 georeferences in the system. So we have about 31,000 more to go this year, let alone the other 40,000 to do next year. So here's the deal with the mapping. You guys know your collection and where the stuff came from. You know the location of the merchant's store, the carpenter's shop, the subject of the photograph etc etc etc. So while I'm going through and adding as many geotags as possible based on the record itself, you have a lot more knowledge in your heads that needs to get documented in the database.
So here's a slightly revised view of where we stand with our funding deliverables and general statistics. 258 artifacts and 462, giving us new totals of 192,091 records and 73,319 images.
By region,
Southwest: 98,787 artifacts, 32,504 images
Central: 36,598 artifacts, 13,872 images
Northeast: 30,685 artifacts, 17,926 images
Cape Breton: 26,021 artifacts, 9,017 images
Your image of the month is an example of what not to do, so I'm not going to tell you where it's from. The reason I've chosen to share this is to talk about natural positioning of the artifact. This particular item is a little statue, a miniature of an actual memorial in Springhill. Now, if you visit Springhill, you won't see the statue lying on the ground, but standing proud and tall. So when the photo was taken, it should have been upright, with the scale tucked around the front left corner of the base. We don't want to the object to look like it fainted or fell over. Detail shots are where you move the orientation to capture whatever detail you need, but for the overall image, natural positioning is key.
That's all for March. Happy Easter to everyone. Whether you're participating in spiritual activities, conducting Easter egg hunts or just enjoying a long weekend, I hope it's a great one.
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