Social Metadata for Libraries, Archives and Museums. Research findings from the RLG Partners Social Metadata Working Group.

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Social Metadata for Libraries, Archives and
Museums.Research findings from the RLG Partners
Social Metadata Working Group.

• Rose Holley
• rholley_at_nla.gov.au
• Karen Smith-Yoshimura
• smithyok_at_oclc.org

Libraries Australia Forum Canberra October 20,
2010
http//www.oclc.org/research/activities/aggregatin
g/
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Terminology What are we talking about?

• Social media/networking
• Ways for people to communicate online with each
  other e.g. Twitter, Facebook, Blogs.
• User Generated Content (UGC)
• Things produced by users rather than owners of
  the site e.g. image, video, text AND metadata
  tags, comments, notes.
• Social Metadata
• Additional information about a resource given by
  online users e.g. tags, comments.
• Social Media Features
• Interactive features added to a site that enable
  virtual groups to build and communicate with each
  other and social metadata to be added.
• Social Engagement
• User interaction online e.g. communication
  between users, from users to site owners, from
  users with objects/resources.
• Web 2.0
• Online applications that facilitate interactive
  rather than passive experiences.

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Social Metadata Working Group Focus

• User contributions that can enrich the
  descriptive metadata created by libraries,
  archives, and museums.
• Issues that need to be resolved to communicate
  and share user contributions on the network level.

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Woohoo! I have a job!!!
http//www.slideshare.net/thebrandbuilder/olivier-
blanchard-basics-of-social-media-roi (Adapted
from)
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Im a man of few words Tweet!
Dudes, we are ON THIS!!! Lets start engagin!!!
I call dibs on the Library blog.
http//www.slideshare.net/thebrandbuilder/olivier-
blanchard-basics-of-social-media-roi (Adapted
from)
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Crickey! I dont know what Im doing!!!
All systems engage! Engage, full
throttle. Mission commence. We have liftoff! We
have liftoff!
http//www.slideshare.net/thebrandbuilder/olivier-
blanchard-basics-of-social-media-roi (Adapted
from)
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Theyre tagging commenting too!
Oh my! Look at all the new visitors to our
website! and all of our FaceBook friends! Hot
Damn, we even have comments on the blog!
http//www.slideshare.net/thebrandbuilder/olivier-
blanchard-basics-of-social-media-roi (Adapted
from)
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Oh wow. How am I going to measure social
engagement - impressions and eyeballs?
http//www.slideshare.net/thebrandbuilder/olivier-
blanchard-basics-of-social-media-roi (Adapted
from)
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How long will all this analysis take?
Its all a process of elimination,
really. Isolating patterns, quantifying
deltas, proving ad-hocs
Then all we have to do is figure out what
works, what doesnt, and give our
recommendations to the captain...
http//www.slideshare.net/thebrandbuilder/olivier-
blanchard-basics-of-social-media-roi (Adapted
from)
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The Wild West of Social Metadata for Libraries,
Museums and Archives

• Dont do it
• Do it with caution.
• Experimentation..
• Do a bit of everything the WILD WEST no
  rules
• Now Review what we learnt and consolidate - plan
  for future, structure.

With a gay bandanna around his neck, the modern
cowboy presents a vivid picture in boots and
spurs, and is just as skilful as an old time
puncher.
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Our Research Aims 20 QUESTIONS

• Objectives of Social Metadata?
• How we measure success?
• What UGC is of most value?
• Good examples of sites?
• Best practice policy, guidelines?
• Staffing?
• Moderation?
• Taxonomies and vocabularies?
• Integration/sharing of social metadata?
• Software, technology, functionality?

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Who we are 21 staff from 5 countries

• Drew Bourn, Stanford
• Douglas Campbell, National Library of New Zealand
• Kevin Clair, Penn State
• Chris Cronin, U. Chicago
• Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, U. Minnesota
• Mary Elings, UC Berkeley
• Steve Galbraith, Folger
• Cheryl Gowing, U. Miami
• Rose Holley, National Library of Australia
• Rebekah Irwin, Yale
• Lesley Kadish, Minnesota Historical Society

• Helice Koffler, U. Washington
• Daniel Lovins, Yale
• John Lowery, British Library
• Marja Musson, International Institute of Social
  History
• Henry Raine, New-York Historical Society
• Cyndi Shein, Getty
• Ken Varnum, U. Michigan
• Melanie Wacker, Columbia
• Kayla Willey, Brigham Young
• Beth Yakel, U. Michigan, School of Information
• Staffed by Jean Godby, John MacColl, Karen
  Smith-Yoshimura

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Our Method and Process

• Identify questions
• Find websites relevant for GLAM and review (76
  sites)
• Read, listen, observe and share (200 items)
• Develop questionnaire for website managers and
  send out
• Analyse results (42 returned)
• Discuss all findings and write up
• Develop recommendations

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Our Techniques and Timing

• Timeline 2009 - 2010
• Sub working groups (timezones and interests)
• Teleconferences
• Basecamp project management and collaboration
  software tool

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Basecamp
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Our Results

• Report 1 Website reviews, and use of third
  party sites (150 pages)
• Report 2 Analysis of website manager survey
  results (50 pages)
• Report 3 Recommendations for social metadata
  and bibliography
• Expected date of publication November 2010
• NOW FOR THE PREVIEW.

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http//www.waisda.nl/homepage.do
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http//www.vam.ac.uk/things-to-do/wedding-fashion/
home
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http//plateauportal.wsulibs.wsu.edu/html/ppp/inde
x.php
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http//www.kew.org/
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http//newspapers.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/home
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http//trove.nla.gov.au/
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Use of third party sites

• LibraryThing for Libraries (LTFL)
• Flickr and Flickr Commons
• Youtube
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Wikipedia
• Blogs

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LibraryThing for Libraries
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Flickr
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(No Transcript)
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Twitter
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Wikipedia
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Blogs
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Interesting Facts.
Figure 1 Countries represented in sites that
responded to Social Metadata Survey. This
includes Libraries, Archives, Museums, Community
and Discipline sites.
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Figure 2 How long social media features have
been offered
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Figure 3 Measuring success
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Figure 4 Social media and user contribution
features offered
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Figure 5 Number of visitors contributing content
per month
Top 10 Australian Newspapers, Distributed
Proofreaders, WorldCat
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Figure 6 Roles staff serve on site
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Recommendations (18 so far)

• Have clear objectives for using social media
• PR for organisation vs. community around
  collections
• Motivate users and leverage their enthusiasm
• Design, clear goals, easy and fun, reliable,
  intuitive, interesting, topical, acknowledgement,
  reward, community building features
• Look at other sites to get ideas before starting
  (Report 1).
• Establish/modify guidelines and policies
• For staff to use social media
• For users creating social metadata (personal
  info and privacy, disclaimer, terms of use,
  behaviour, content, ownership, re-use,
  modification).

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Recommendations

• Prepare/train staff
• Policies, skills, interest level.
• Consider benefits/trade offs of using third party
  sites e.g. Flickr, LibraryThing
• Low cost, quick implementation, high visibility,
  be where your community is.
• No control over how presented, no guarantee of
  stability/preservation, policies may change, how
  to get social metadata back to your site?
• Consider open source software
• Do not worry about spam/abuse, issues Go Ahead!
• Very little seen fear not reality. Strategies
  to reduce risk (users register, take down policy,
  Captcha, high visibility of users and actions,
  user profiles open, be explicit about what you
  are doing and why).

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Recommendations

• Usability testing
• Continuous throughout what works, what
  doesnt. Develop with users
• Display AND index social metadata and UGC
• Consider if/how you want to integrate UGC with
  your own content.
• Layers user interface, layers behind,
  integrate?
• Measures for success
• Quantitative/qualitative, subjective/objective
• Return on Investment

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Recommendations

• Use social networking features to build community
• Who is online, contact other users, user
  profiles, recommendations from other users
• Use persistent identifiers and make them visible
• Site, objects resources (both site owners and
  UGC)
• Ability to migrate/manage content (especially if
  using third party)
• Can you migrate to another place, how to
  manage/delete/modify UGC?
• Get content indexed by Google so users find it

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Recommendations

• Site to be alive New content
• Make sure visible and new content can be yours
  or users
• Respond quickly to feedback
• open channels of communication with users
• makes me feel like I have a stake in the
  collections
• self-aggrandizing
• my feedback makes things happen

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QUESTIONS?RLG Social MetadataWorking Group
Do we know what were doing now?
Its all in the report captain!
Credits UFO Series http//ufoseries.com/index.htm
l

• Rose Holley
• rholley_at_nla.gov.au
• Karen Smith-Yoshimura
• smithyok_at_oclc.org

http//www.oclc.org/research/activities/aggregati
ng/