At the time of this writing, it is T-minus 10 days until #HILT2015, the Humanities Intensive Learning & Teaching event. HILT is the last week in July in Indianapolis this year, the same great city and its bevy of cultural institutions that hosted DPLAfest this Spring.

Timlynn and I are going to take Mia Ridge and Ben Brumfield’s “Crowdsourcing Cultural Heritage” course.

This past Friday, we started a daily tweet-stream to remind folks about HILT. You can find more information about #HILT2015 here. There is still time to plan a @DPLA #SmartTrip this vacation season… not just to HILT, but to wherever your heart and ever-inquisitive mind will take you.

What is a @DPLA #SmartTrip?

A #SmartTrip is a “seriously fun” trip.

A #SmartTrip is like a vacation, but full of learning activities along with the fun and relaxing stuff.

Anything from a day-trip by car, to a multi-week, multi-stop mega-excursion can qualify as a #SmartTrip. You just need to follow a simple recipe to create your own, personalized, passion-driven seriously fun #SmartTrip experience.

The DPLA is the Digital Public Library of America, which can be found at one of the world’s shortest, easy-to-remember URLs: http://dp.la. As a mission-driven non-profit organization, the DPLA is responsible for creating the go-to/universal portal that delivers to students, teachers, scholars, and the public all the incredible resources, wherever they may be, in the LAMs — Libraries, Archives, and Museums (and other cultural heritage institutions) — throughout the United States. The DPLA works as a “clearinghouse”/“switchboard” to make it easy for us to find and access digital cultural heritage information regardless of where it is stored in the thousands of digital collections created and maintained by our cultural heritage institutions.

How do I take a @DPLA #SmartTrip?

Regardless of length and distance, “doing” a #SmartTrip is as simple as 1, 2, 3… just follow these simple steps:

1. Visit the DPLA website to discover something you are excited to learn about, something new… something that grabs your interest and inspires you to action…
2. Locate a PLACE — a Library, Archive, or Museum or other DPLA cultural heritage organization — that has resources related to this inspiring thing that you are burning to learn about, and make your commitment to take a #SmartTrip there.
3. Then, go on your @DPLA-inspired learning adventure to visit this special learning place and share your excitement. Share your “seriously fun” experience on social media and publishing sites using the #SmartTrip hashtag.

That’s it! Planning and taking a @DPLA #SmartTrip is just that simple.

#SmartTrips as @DPLA Community Outreach

For readers who may be fellow Community Reps of the Digital Public Library of America, we’re evolving this #SmartTrip idea with our new friends at the Cedar Rapids Public Library. As this informal outreach and promotion program shapes up, we’ll be happy to share any materials and lessons learned.

For our part — speaking at this point for myself and Timlynn — we will “fav,” retweet, and share any @DPLA #SmartTrip post we see. And we hope that as an organization, the DPLA will join in this grassroots effort to have some seriously fun times by doing the same… fav, retweet and share #SmartTrip posts to support and encourage a growing community of @DPLA #SmartTrippers. And, hey… maybe the DPLA will create some fun DPLA #SmartTrip “swag” to help inspire folks to get out and go visit the incredible cultural heritage organizations who are contributing members to, and which support the bold, broad mission of, the DPLA.

Our Upcoming #SmartTrip to #HILT2015

For our own upcoming #SmartTrip, Timlynn and I are getting stoked. Our first #SmartTrip was our “shakedown cruise” to DPLAfest. From there it was on to the Internet Archive Scanning Center in Fort Wayne where we delivered and helped with the initial scanning of the full 48-issue run of Softalk magazine.

Our upcoming HILT crowdsourcing course #SmartTrip is very timely for the next phase of our FactMiners.org and SoftalkApple.com Citizen Science and Citizen History projects. So even if you don’t plan to take your own #SmartTrip, we invite you to take a vicarious trip with us during the last week of July. We’ll be on our @DPLA #SmartTrip July 26th through 31st.

We look forward to hearing about our fellow Reps own #SmartTrips as well as those we Reps might inspire friends in our communities to take in the weeks ahead.

Physically visiting a LAM — a Library, Archive, or Museum, or other cultural heritage institution — is a great way to remind ourselves and others that even “digital stuff” comes from Real World cultural institutions.

That’s it for now… gotta run to finish planning our #SmartTrip… You?

With all the electronic devices and near-universal access to vast storehouses of digitized cultural heritage information, it is easy to forget the richness and access that we have to amazing resources that are right in our own backyards. Join us, and take a @DPLA #SmartTrip this Summer.

Happy-Healthy Vibes,
-: Jim Salmons and Timlynn Babitsky :- Iowa-based DPLA Community Reps
w/ focus on Citizen Science, History, & Journalism