For the second year in a row, I had the distinct privilege of attending the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan. According to the Medieval Congress' Twitter feed (@KzooICMS), this unique conference attracted almost 3,000 attendees this year.
In 2016, our brave team of researchers arrived at Western Michigan University equipped with iPads and University of Pittsburgh lanyards with the aim of conducting usability surveys (you can read more about that in my October 2016 update). Last week, Dr. Langmead and I presented at a session sponsored by the Material Collective and shared the results of these surveys and talked about personal vs. collective image collections. I will not repeat our survey findings here, as I've written about them before. However, I will note that our Swipe.to polls revealed the following information about the attendees at our conference session:
First, we asked of the attendees (mostly art historians): "How long do you want your research images to last?"
- ~32% selected "Forever"
- ~41% selected "Until the end of my career"
- ~14% selected "Until the end of the research project (approx. 2-3 yrs)"
- 0 selected "Until the end of the week"
- <1% selected "It doesn't matter to me"
- ~10% selected "Another option"
Following this question, we asked: "How long do you expect your research images to last?"
- ~18% selected "Forever"
- ~36% selected "Until the end of my career"
- ~23% selected "Until the end of the research project (approx. 2-3 yrs)"
- <1% selected "Until the end of the week"
- <1% selected "It doesn't matter to me"
- ~23% selected "Another option"
We then asked: "Is there a gap between your expectation and desire for image persistence, and are you concerned about it?"
- ~43% selected "Yes"
- ~35% selected "No"
- ~22% selected "I don't see a gap"
Finally, and perhaps, most importantly, we asked: "If you could store your research images communally, would you?
- 48% selected "Yes, in a heartbeat"
- 16% selected "Yes, I suppose"
- 32% selected "Maybe...talk to me more"
- 0 selected "No, it's fine"
- 0 seleged "No way"
- <1% selected "Other"
Consider these as you will!
We also presented the attached "rogue" poster at various wine hours throughout the Congress.
