User participation in digital collections building Amy Rudersdorf, Digital Technologies Librarian Special Collections Research Center, NC State University Libraries

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User participation in digital collections
buildingAmy Rudersdorf, Digital Technologies
Librarian Special Collections Research Center,
NC State University Libraries
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User participation in digital collections building

• Outline
• What sort of involvement?
• Why user participation?
• Why not user participation?
• How does NCSU Special Collections involve users
  in digital collections building?

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User participation in digital collections building

• NCSU Special Collections digital collections
• University archives photograph collection
• NCSU history, athletics, student life
• Specialized collections
• Botany
• 4-H/Agriculture
• Architecture
• Entomology

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User participation in digital collections building

• What sort of involvement?
• General Identification Description
• Titles
• Creators
• Dates
• Tagging/Folksonomies?
• Subject terms
• Genre
• Others?

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User participation in digital collections building

• Why get users involved?
• Collections remain relatively inaccessible
  even when 'made available' through searchable
  on-line databases. Museum documentation seldom
  satisfies the on-line access needs of the broad
  public, both because it is written using
  professional terminology and because it may not
  address what is important to or remembered by
  the museum visitor. (Bearman, 2005)

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User participation in digital collections building

• Why get users involved?
• Users may have more knowledge about the images
  than the people creating the metadata
• NCSU campus facilities
• NCSU athletics
• The primary benefit of free tagging is that we
  know the classification makes sense to users...
  (Merholz, 2004)

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User participation in digital collections building

• Why not?
• With no one controlling the vocabulary, users
  develop multiple terms for identical concepts.
  For example, if you want to find all references
  to New York City on Del.icio.us, youll have to
  look through nyc, newyork, and
  newyorkcity. (Merholz, 2004)
• Flickr NCSU Libraries Special Collections
  Research Center, NCSU, NCSU SCRC, NC State

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User participation in digital collections building

• Why not?
• Users may think they have more knowledge about
  the images than library metadata creators
• Users may not understand controlled vocabularies
• Users may not have reference resources at hand to
  properly describe images
• Real or proper names of buildings, departments,
  persons, etc.

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User participation in digital collections building

• User involvement
• University Archives image ID blog
• Email contact 1-2 per month
• Generally, responses come from current or
  emeritus faculty or staff and alumni
• Requires one-on-one interaction
• Requires some research to confirm information
• No social tagging. Records are updated by
  Libraries staff
• Linked from Library Memories initiative to gather
  library user stories and recollections

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User participation in digital collections building
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• Vaulter is Stuart Corn, and was taken in 1962

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User participation in digital collections building

• User involvement
• NCSU Special Collections Flickr site
  (http//flickr.com/photos/ncsu_scrc/)
• Upload 5-10 images per month
• Generally, responses come from current students,
  alumni, or NC residents
• May require one-on-one interaction definitely
  requires lurking
• Requires some research to confirm user
  information
• Social tagging allowed, but title and
  descriptions are updated by Libraries staff

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User participation in digital collections building
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User participation in digital collections building
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User participation in digital collections building

• What weve learned
• Flickr
• Athletics photographs are the most popular
• 38 photographs on Flickr, 9 are athletics related
  (24)
• 527 views of 1024 are of athletics images (52)
• Increased traffic to Libraries since Flickr site
  went live has been small, but growing!
• 1024 Flickr views, 109 clicks from Flickr to
  Libraries
• (11 of Flickr views lead to a click-through to
  Libraries site)
• No one has tagged the photographs but us!
• As of April 13, 2007

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User participation in digital collections building

• What weve learned
• Photo blogs
• Users have great memories and are willing to
  share if you can communicate with them!
• Need to research the information users provide
• Not always correct, or only partially correct
• Users are interested identifying locations and
  people in images and correcting data in title,
  description, date, geographical location
• No user has ever mentioned subject terms or
  genres.

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Resources

• Bearman, David and Jennifer Trant. "Social
  Terminology Enhancement through Vernacular
  Engagement." D-Lib Magazine 11(9). Retrieved
  February 12, 2007 from lthttp//www.dlib.org/dlib/s
  eptember05/bearman/09bearman.htmlgt.
• Green, David. Using Digital Images in Teaching
  and Learning Perspectives from Liberal Arts
  Institutions. October 2006. Retrieved February
  12, 2007 from lthttp//www.academiccommons.org/file
  s/image-report.pdfgt.
• Merholz, P. Metadata for the masses. October
  19, 2007. Retrieved on February 12, 2007 from
  lthttp//www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/a
  rchives/000361.phpgt
• Peterson, Elaine. Beneath the Metadata Some
  Philosophical Problems with Folksonomy. D-Lib
  Magazine 12(11). Retrieved February 12, 2007 from
  lthttp//www.dlib.org/dlib/november06/peterson/11pe
  terson.htmlgt.