This session focused on the project management angle of building a digital collection for the Iowa City Public Library's Digital History Project at history.icpl.org/tornado. It was presented on March 26, 2017, at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. The session description was as follows: On April 13, 2006, an F2 tornado formed in Southwest Iowa City. Eight minutes and 4.5 miles later, the twister dissipated, leaving more than $12 million in damages. In honor of the 10th anniversary of the tragedy, the Iowa City Public Library collected images and stories from community members who experienced this historic event. Members of the public submitted more than 2,500 images and video to the library for its digital collections on its Omeka website. ICPL plotted many of these images onto a Neatline map where users could tour the destruction digitally. This session shares the project’s "lessons learned": What factors led to successful crowdsourcing? What struggles did crowd-controlled curation invite? It covers the marketing strategies, technology tools, and interactive print and e-sign exhibits that grew from the map. ICPL will provide analytics on the map’s use as well as attendance numbers for the library program produced in tandem with the digital tour. Tour the tornado path in advance at history.icpl.org/tornado.

1. Library Technology Conference, Thursday, March 16, 2017
Mapping a Tornado Tragedy:
A Crowdsourcing Case Study
Melody Dworak, Librarian, Iowa City Public Library

2. Job Description
Digital Archive
Other
Cataloging Reference
Selection

3. Pre-Project Launch
Digital Archive

4. Roles & Responsibilities
Collections Manager
Reference Manager
IT Manager
Digital Archive
Librarian
Outreach Librarian
Hourly Assistant
Graphics

5. One Project: Many Deliverables
Build digital collection
Curate digital exhibit
Engage with print exhibit
Connect and host program

6. Collecting from the Crowd

7. PR & Marketing

8. Processing & Reformatting

9. Digital Collection
2006 Iowa City Tornado

10. Digital Collection
2006 Iowa City Tornado Coding by Brent Palmer

11. Print Exhibit: Tornado Tour

12. Print Exhibit: Citizen Stories

14. Program

15. Program

16. Program

17. Program

18. 2018: Flood Retrospective
Can we replicate success?

19. What gap exists?

20. Takeaways
Crowdsourcing = community = inclusion
How to give selection as much weight as inclusion?
Control that scope of work!
Plan for unfulfilled wish list
Find a topic that affects a critical mass
Make time

21. Project Tools & Resources
FADGI Technical Guidelines for Digitizing Cultural Heritage Materials
Project tracking: Trello
Website architecture: Omeka
Exhibit architecture: Neatline
Metadata standard: Dublin Core
Metadata wrangling: Excel & CSV spreadsheets
Scanner: Epson Expression 10000XL