Automation can be a great help when it comes to keeping up with your sector while also avoiding information overload. By current awareness, we mean keeping up with the latest information on a particular field of knowledge or sector – a key part of continuing professional development. IFTTT (if this, then that) can be a […]
Doing more with digital signage – 2019 update
Digital signage displays have long been a fixture of galleries, libraries, archives and museums providing both wayfinding and collections information. We first wrote about digital signage back in 2017, focusing on rolling your own DIY solution with a Raspberry Pi. But the landscape has changed quite a bit since then so we thought it would […]
How to level up your library makerspace
Makerspaces have been a fixture in the library sector for a while now and it’s been great to witness and contribute to their continuing development. _TechSoup for Libraries recently included ‘Updating Media Labs and Makerspaces’ as one of their Tech Trends for 2019 (albeit with a focus on new technologies rather than new approaches). We’re […]
How (and why) we build Chatbots – GLAMbot series #2
A brief introduction to chatbots In the previous blog post in this series, we talked about creating social media-based culturebots. There’s also lots and lots of use cases for chatbots – a more conversational approach to connecting with your users. Just a quick refresher, when we talk about bots, we mean automated processes or tasks […]
Building GLAMbots for social media – GLAMbot series #1
Introduction Bots are one of those things that you might hear about a lot usually in a negative way. But despite what you may hear, not all bots are malicious. In fact, there are lots of creative and entertaining bots that are being used to promote collections or parts of collections and other cultural sector […]
Building and running the #ILI2018 Treasure Hunt
What’s this about a treasure hunt? Last week, we ran an experimental interactive treasure hunt as part of the 20th Internet Librarians International conference in London. We also gave a talk about Conversations in the library, using technology to create new ways to communicate and collaborate with users, which you can read here. The treasure […]
Conversations in the library: new technologies for better UX
This is the text version of our talk at Internet Librarian International 2018. Introduction As a creative technology company, we work with libraries on makerspace and maker education projects as well as software development and installations such as our LibraryWalls project. Basically, we spend a lot of time thinking about interaction and interactivity in libraries. […]
Why you should consider a podcast studio for your library
Podcasts are an accessible and creative format but they do require dedicated tools and a bit of quiet to produce, which isn’t always easy to attain. Libraries have always been a place of access, and this includes access to software and tools that aren’t easily available to people elsewhere.The digital media labs that have started […]
Artefacto Autumn Update – New workshops, publications & collaborations
Itβs been a while since our last update and weβve been working on some exciting new projects and collaborations that we wanted to tell everyone about. We recently worked with Guildford Library on the Arts Council funded Read:Code:Make project. This was a collaboration of artists and digital makers, who came together to create interactive art […]
Read:Code:Make 3: The Final Piece(s)
Welcome to our third and final post on the Read:Code:Program from Guildford Library. In our first post we introduced the artists and makers while in our second post we talked about the creative process. In this post weβll discuss the final pieces that were displayed at Guildford Library and reflect on the whole process. Russell […]