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Listening in to the NMC Horizons webinar (whilst furiously reference-formatting, so excuse the lack of nuance) about preservation and conservation for digital objects. I'm still anxiously awaiting the day when someone (more important than me) suggests that in the future people who consider themselves subject experts or materials experts will have to be equally skilled in physical and digital: e.g. photography experts will have to be not only good at identifying olden-tymes tintypes and daguerrotypes but also eyeballing digital filters and quality specs, or know from default file-naming conventions which DSLR was used. I mentioned it during MCN2013 to the lovely folks from Australia's War Memorial and they were enthusiastic about it. I don't think it's crazy. Also, "time-based art" and "variable art" and "variable media" are not new concepts. Not by any means. We have to have a long talk about these, NMC. I will also reiterate something I can't say enough: LOBBY SOFTWARE MAKERS. Collaborate on advocating for software (and hardware, and OS, and code-library, etc.) vendors to provide access to obsolete versions (and add-ons and expansions and patches, etc.) for cultural heritage institutions. Publish a very public rating system for companies and their adherence to providing long-term access. (Someone is doing something sort of like this.) BE MEAN. Gordon S. (of a middle school) just suggested getting students to CC-license their handed-in work so that teachers can use them as examples for future years. Is this a kosher requirement? Can you require that sort of licensing as part of an assignment instruction? (Note for copyright project: CLEARLY delineate [make some charts, guy] rights and responsibilities for different institutions, and both Canadian and American [and maybe UK/Commonwealth averages?].)

The NMC guy is broadcasting cachemonet.com during the pre-test. Not sure if it's just an audio calibrater or an actual part of his presentation, but, still. Challenge: Accessibility is often a token mention -- but not enough active grappling with the issue. (I find the quantitative-ness of the "one year / two to three years / four to five years" prediction a bit odd. I want to see more examples of everything, practical applications that make these things feasible for the majority of institutions. Alex F. just admitted that many of the four-to-five things are "we think they'll be important, but we can't see HOW yet.") So, BYOD: Lots of quizzes. Lots of rewards! Are people really in need of "prizes and discounts"? Or is using your device to access digital content its own reward? Alex F. shows a trailer for the Tate QuizTrail app. Of course, the actress doesn't look like she's having any fun. Sounds like there's a war on between the "go ahead, take your cell pics" team and the "please dear god download our high-res versions instead" team. Team Grainy and Team Indignant? Crowdsourcing: "In 2012, Kickstarted funded more art projects than the National Endowment." (In dollars or in number of projects?) (Watching tweets stop during videos and then stack up again during speakers' bits is fascinating. Also, tweets are _so_ empty.) Cooper Hewitt has a form to fill out for errors in object records - and unique tags to attach to photos of an object on social-media sites. Collecting user documentation is a big thing for me. Electronic publishing: OSCI project. Not just for blogs anymore. Museum catalogues are going to be fascinating in digital form. "Substantial scholarly breakthroughs." Interactive x-ray overlays of paintings! Location-based services: bluetooth beacons, bytelights, rfid. Wifi triangulation. "Who needs QR codes when you have image recognition?" Preservation and Conservation:: yep. You guys are really blowing this one. Shoutouts to "digital curation" programs, but not in the way most programs define themselves. Tate's time-based initiative is working on it. But why is it four-to-five years? :( Carl Haber: senior physics scientist. Builds particle cameras. Freaked out about LOC collections decay. Photographs physical storage media (records, wax cylinders, tape) and replicates digitally. Ba-bam! ("Key trend" is a horrible phrase.)