SLA 2014: VANCOUVER, CANADAKATRINA STIERHOLZ, FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF ST. LOUISSTIERHOLZ@STLS.FRB.ORG

MY COMMENTS ARE MY OWN, AND DO NOT REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE ST. LOUIS FED OR THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM

Digital Government Strategy: building a 21st century platform

to better serve our constituencies

St. Louis Fed’s work

We’ve been doing this for a whileProductsOur focusStrategy &

changesChallengesNext steps

History of outreach

Products with a purpose Data (FRED)

Paper since early 1960s Digital since early 1990s

Economic Education Mid 1990s Fed Challenge & tours Classroom

Digital library (FRASER) Post-paper world Since 2004

Mostly paperDirect to customer (often)

Focus for Information Services

Economic informationCredible, high qualityUnbiasedEconomic education

Economic way of thinking In line with curricular standards

FRED & FRASER Aggregates from multiple sources Uses source information directly Each provides a single user interface

FRED

Database of economic time seriesAggregates data from 67 sources

mostly government Data are in a single format, making it easy to have multiple

series in a single graphOver 220,000 economic time series

All major macroeconomic indicators are representedGrew out of our economic policy outreach

Visible public serviceTools built on top of FRED (GeoFRED, Alfred,

Excel add-in, API)Graphing software built into FRED, easy graphing

FRASER

A digital library of policy documents, data, and primary source materials about economics and banking in the United States

Focused on the Federal Reserve, monetary policy issues, banking, and general economic policy.

Useful for teaching economic history, evaluating policy decisions (mock FOMC), contemporaneous accounts

Contains Over 1000 titles, 70,000 issues 10 special collections, with 13,408 documents (folders or items) And 383,578 call reports

Types of documents: Data and statistical publications (mostly federal agency) Archival records (personal papers, Federal Reserve Board records) Federal Reserve publications Congressional publications

Economic Education

Produced print lessons for yearsAlready had a training the trainer as a

conceptMoved to an online format:

Online courses (each one lasts one or two class periods)

Podcasts Videos Simulated chats Whiteboard / Promethean activities Apps

Minutes from the Boardof Governors meeting,October 29, 1929

Minutes from the BoG, October 30, 1929

Traditional method—face to face

Good news Immediate customer feedback Measureable impact (count ‘em) Testimonials More “high touch”

Bad news Limited by staff time Reach is small, relative to other methods Can’t replicate Only happens when staff are present

Move online/change strategy

Still direct to customer

Old things continued

But there are limits to our reach this way…

New strategy: wholesale

Our strategy now

Continue to have direct as self-serve, but…Each product has slightly different tactics,

but the overall strategy is the same. Use the internet Think, “train the trainer” Whenever possible, leverage other resources to

maximize our reach Make things efficient for maximum output Cross promote for more impact

FRED strategy

Use the internet Moved online, eventually cancelled print

Train the trainer Teach professors Tutorials (write once, read many)

Leverage other resources Media/Journalists Social media/bloggers Textbook publishers Textbook authors

Cross-promote Additional products to meet needs (GeoFRED, AlFRED, Excel Add-in) Econ ed writes curriculum using FRED to support classroom uses

Be efficient

FRASER strategy

Use the internet (from the beginning)Train the trainer

Raise awareness with librarians (you!)Leverage other resources

Twitter DPLA OCLC Fed in Print/Econ Lit

Cross-promote Link to content in FRED Develop curriculum (Barbie and Women in the labor force) Reference, when appropriate, in Wikipedia

Be efficient

Economic education strategy

Train the trainer (more) Workshops with teachers Conference presentations Webinars Offer professional development credit for our workshops, to encourage

enrollment Leverage other resources

Textbooks (Worth) Other Fed’s offering training Partnerships with other institutions (CEE, SIFMA) Social media (twitter, facebook)

Be efficient Useable parts, reused in multiple places Offer sessions for employees, use the video from that for an external video

Cross-promote Available for non-traditional audiences, too Maximize search results in a variety of ways

Benefits

Increase our reach in the most efficient manner possible

Moves focus to creating content, adding features, and improving usability

Reaching audiences who are influential in their worlds (librarians, teachers, journalists)

Helps us think about new audiences for our work (especially cross-promoting and partnerships)

Challenges

More effort for all items, when only some of them really get traction from the ‘leveraging outside resources’

More removed from our audiences, so feedback can be more difficult to get (not just squeaky wheels)

When others carry your message, you can’t control it

Next steps

More integration across resources and across audiences

New curriculum staff to integrateEconomic information conference

Aimed at librarians and other information professionals with the knowledge, competence, and enthusiasm to disseminate economic information expertise to their respective audiences.

We are also targeting i-Schools, library schools, and journalism schools for attendance. Many will have two reserved seats: one for a faculty member and one for a student. We think this moves us even further up the ‘wholesale’ market.

Considering metadata standardization or linking across products for automated links

Keeping it going

Your ideas?

Contact me at stierholz@stls.frb.org

Thank you!