- by Sarah J. McCarthy

Crowdsourcing for Libraries

Crowdsourcing Defined Webster’s dictionary defines

crowdsourcing as “the practice of obtaining needs, services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people and especially from the online community rather than from traditional employees or suppliers” (Crowdsourcing).

Library Crowdsourcing Origins

Consider the Meteorological Project initiated in 1848 by the Smithsonian’s first Secretary, Joseph Henry.

150 volunteers across the country submitted monthly weather reports. The reports were published in an 1861 compilation of climatic data and storm observations (Bruno, 2011).

This project is considered the precursor to the National Weather Bureau. (SIA RU000060, Smithsonian Institution Meteorological Project, 2011).

Crowdsourcing Benefits

Accomplish tasks the library doesn’t have staff, time, or finances to achieve.

Add value to/improve the quality of data.

Engage the community with the library/ collection and make use of their expertise.

Allow data to be discoverable in new ways.

Validate the worth of the library by allowing for a high level of public involvement.

Encourage a sense of public ownership and responsibility for the collections (Holley, 2010).

Case Studies

1Tag/Identify Materials 2Build Upon/

Create Data

3Transcribe Text

Tag / Identify MaterialsSmithsonian Institution

• Flickr Commons visitors can add keywords and tags to images; these are then vetted.

• Select words are added to the metadata, enhancing the search function and making images easier to find (Oliver, 2011).

• Sometimes this leads to new collection materials-- For example, Flickr photographs from the Scopes Monkey Trial prompted a donation of 10 additional photos by Henriatta S. Jenrette, daughter of a trial attendee (Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, 2011).

Build Upon / Create Data

Transcribe Text

Further ExamplesFast Code Design LibAnswers Pay-to-Scan

Challenges with Crowdsourcing

Error Preventio

n/ Data Control

Design & Technolo

gy Concerns

Limited

Resources

Maintaining Interest

What to Do With the Data

Maintaining Interest

Digitalkoot: Mole Bridge and Mole Hunt

“We want to compete against others, we seek reward and positive feedback…we want to demonstrate we can solve tricky problems and prove how clever we are.”

--Claudia Pelzer, Crowdsourcing.com founder

Error Prevention / Data Control

Newspaper quality was not good, and the OCR did not provide good results

Crowdsourcing was found to be a good option to re-key the text

Vandalism and lack of familiarity with the project were their primary concerns

Vandalism- addressed by showing end-users the original image, having a roll-back plan, and having mandatory login

Lack of familiarity with the project- addressed by using familiar terms, providing reference points, and offering technical help

It was a huge success– by the end of the first 6 months, over 2 million lines of text in more than 100,000 articles had already been corrected

Australian Newspapers Digitization Program (ANDP)

Design and Technology Concerns

Limited Resources Time and resources are often quite limited, but there are collaborative options that

can help. Flickr Commons is one option– especially useful for image identifying or tagging. Clickworker.com is another-- libraries can price out projects to be undertaken by their

community of over 115,000 individuals. This might be good for time-sensitive projects.

The George Eastman House currently has a Clickworker project to help catalog and tag over 400,000 of their images. (George Eastman House taps Clickworker for iconic global crowdsourcing project).

What To Do With the Data“In asking for the public's help in extracting the menus data, we are making an implicit promise to do something interesting and useful with it… What it means fundamentally is re-imagining the very roles of librarians and curators, positioning them not only as custodians of physical collections, but as leaders of online communities.”

-Ben Vershbow, Director of NYPL Labs (Gan, 2011)

CONCLUSIONNote: for the full list of references, see my research paper on this topic.

? And that concludes my presentation… Any Questions?

References, p. 1 (2010). Retrieved November 5, 2011, from Dickens Journals Online: http://www.djo.org.uk/

Capturing the power of the crowd and the challenge of community collections. (2010, July 27). Retrieved November 3, 2011, from JISC: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/programmerelated/2010/communitycollections.aspx

Old Weather FAQ. (2010). Retrieved November 11, 2011, from OldWeather.com: http://www.oldweather.org/faq

WWI ships to chart past climate. (2010, October 13). Retrieved November 5, 2011, from bbc.co.uk: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11532534

Leafsnap, a new mobile app that identifies plants by leaf shape, is launched by Smithsonian and collaborators. (2011, May 2). Retrieved October 23, 2011, from Smithsonian Science: http://smithsonianscience.org/2011/05/new-mobile-app-that-identifies-plants-by-leaf-shape-launched-by-smithsonian-and-columbia-and-maryland-universities/

SIA RU000060, Smithsonian Institution Meteorological Project. (2011). Retrieved December 9, 2011, from Smithsonian Institution Archives: were analyzed by Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Lafayette College, James H. Coffi

About us. (n.d.). Retrieved October 23, 23, from Transcribe Bentham, UCL: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/transcribe-bentham/about/

Benetti, T. D. (2011, June 16). The secrets of Digitalkoot: Lessons learned crowdsourcing data entry to 50,000 people (for free). Retrieved November 4, 2011, from Microtask.com: http://blog.microtask.com/2011/06/the-secrets-of-digitalkoot-lessons-learned-crowdsourcing-data-entry-to-50000-people-for-free/

Boesveld, S. (2011, May 30). Can Wikipedia improve students’ work? Retrieved October 25, 2011, from NationalPost.com: http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/05/30/can-wikipedia-improve-students-work/

Bruno, E. (2011, April 14). Smithsonian crowdsourcing since 1847! Retrieved October 5, 2011, from Smithsonian Institution Archives: http://siarchives.si.edu/blog/smithsonian-crowdsourcing-1847

References, p. 2 Crowdsourcing. (n.d.). Retrieved October 15, 2011, from M-W.com: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/crowdsourcing?

show=0&t=1319399161

Davey, N. (2010, January 7). Ross Dawson: Six tools to kickstart your crowdsourcing strategy. Retrieved November 11, 2011, from mycustomer.com: http://www.mycustomer.com/topic/customer-intelligence/ross-dawson-six-tools-start-your-crowdsourcing-strategy/109914#

Deacon, H. (2010, April 10). Involving archive users in digitising archival collections . Retrieved October 12, 2011, from The Archival Platform: http://www.archivalplatform.org/blog/entry/involve_users/

Friedman, S. (2011, July 14). Finding the future: inside NYPL's all-night scavenger hunt. Retrieved October 15, 2011, from LibraryJournal.com: http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/community/libraryculture/890973-271/finding_the_future_inside_nypls.html.csp

Front page news and development. (n.d.). Retrieved November 1, 2011, from Distributed Proofreaders: http://www.pgdp.net/c/

Gan, V. (2011, September 16). All hands on deck: NYPL turns to the crowd to develop digital collections. Retrieved September 17, 2011, from HuffingtonPost.com: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-new-york-public-library/all-hands-on-deck-nypl-tu_b_966057.html

Crowdsourcing. (n.d.). Retrieved October 15, 2011, from M-W.com: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/crowdsourcing?show=0&t=1319399161

Davey, N. (2010, January 7). Ross Dawson: Six tools to kickstart your crowdsourcing strategy. Retrieved November 11, 2011, from mycustomer.com: http://www.mycustomer.com/topic/customer-intelligence/ross-dawson-six-tools-start-your-crowdsourcing-strategy/109914#

Deacon, H. (2010, April 10). Involving archive users in digitising archival collections . Retrieved October 12, 2011, from The Archival Platform: http://www.archivalplatform.org/blog/entry/involve_users/

Friedman, S. (2011, July 14). Finding the future: inside NYPL's all-night scavenger hunt. Retrieved October 15, 2011, from LibraryJournal.com: http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/community/libraryculture/890973-271/finding_the_future_inside_nypls.html.csp

References, p. 3 Front page news and development. (n.d.). Retrieved November 1, 2011, from Distributed Proofreaders: http://www.pgdp.net/c/

Gan, V. (2011, September 16). All hands on deck: NYPL turns to the crowd to develop digital collections. Retrieved September 17, 2011, from HuffingtonPost.com: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-new-york-public-library/all-hands-on-deck-nypl-tu_b_966057.html

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/22/using-new-tools-mapping-old-brooklyn/

Oliver, B. (2011, January 28). Tag! You're it! And a survey... Retrieved October 10, 2011, from Smithsonian Libraries: http://smithsonianlibraries.si.edu/smithsonianlibraries/2011/01/tag-youre-it.html

Pelzer, C. (2011, September 3). How gamification drives crowdsourcing. Retrieved November 5, 2011, from Crowdsourcing.org: http://www.crowdsourcing.org/editorial/how-gamification-drives-crowdsourcing/6419

Progress update, 15 to 21 October 2011. (n.d.). Retrieved October 23, 2011, from Transcribe Bentham, UCL: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/transcribe-bentham/

Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. (2011, April 18). Field book project now on Flickr Commons. Retrieved October 10, 2011, from Field book project: http://nmnh.typepad.com/fieldbooks/2011/04/flickr.html

Sommer, L. (2011, August 16). Mapping project reveals pre-1906 quake San Francisco. Retrieved October 21, 2011, from KQED News: http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2011/08/16/mapping-project-reveals-pre-earthquake-san-francisco/

Springer, M., Dulabahn, B., Michel, P., Natanson, B., Reser, D., Woodward, D., et al. (2008, October 30). For the common good: the Library of Congress Flickr pilot project. Retrieved November 5, 2011, from LOC.gov: http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/flickr_report_final.pdf

Stein, B. (2011, April 12). Crowdsourcing science history: NIST digital archives seeks help in identifying mystery artifacts. Retrieved October 23, 2011, from NIST Tech Beat: http://www.nist.gov/director/archives-041211.cfm

References, p. 4 The Great War Archive. (n.d.). Retrieved November 1, 2011, from The First World War poetry digital archive:

http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/gwa

The University of Iowa. (2011). Civil War diaries and letters transcription project. Retrieved November 5, 2011, from The University of Iowa Libraries: http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/cwd/transcripts.html

Tischler, L. (n.d.). How Twitter And Facebook helped Bing Thom design a public library. Retrieved November 11, 2011, from FastCodeDesign.com: http://www.fastcodesign.com/1664711/how-twitter-and-facebook-helped-bing-thom-design-a-public-library

University of Oxford Ancient Lives. (n.d.). Retrieved November 11, 2011, from AncientLives.com: http://www.ancientlives.org/transcribe

What is AquaBrowser Library? (n.d.). Retrieved October 31, 2011, from Serial Solutions Media Lab: http://www.medialab.nl/aquabrowser.html

What's on the menu? (n.d.). Retrieved October 5, 2011, from NYPL.org: http://menus.nypl.org/about