Download - Are you being served?
Are You Being Served?Are You Being Served?How knowing digital users can help you improve access to your alderman and notary archives and loads of other stuff
Südwestdeutscher Archivtag | Konstanz, Germany | May 24, 2014
Meet ChristianMeet Christian
Works at BHIC, Netherlands Coördinates reference
services & digital innovation
Founder of Archief 2.0 Blogger/speaker/writer
www.digitalearchivaris.nl
@cvanderven
A great idea!A great idea!
“Let’s scan our alderman* archives and let volunteers make them accessible in the best way possible”
*) Stadträte until 1811
Best index
ever!
ResultsResults
Best index ever?
No, in about 10 years of hard work a group of volunteers completed about 1% of the index…
…and the project was halted
The following 12 slides contain screenshots that even archivists may find too old, outdated & boring(Also all of them are in Dutch)
IndexesInformation desk
Knowledge base Education
Depository
Meet WillieMeet Willie
Regular visitor at BHIC
Sweet person who likes to help other researchers
Made local notary archives accessible
Over 33.000transcriptions
Basic source information and a summary of the deed put into plain text
Summary
Source info
Search
Well deserved! How
lovely!
The old daysThe old days
Meeting users in our study halls Knowing users over many years of visits
Basis for providing services Basis for successful collaboration
And then the Internet cameand it changed everything…
Meet digital usersMeet digital users
IP addresses Visits and pageviews Click paths, session duration,
exit pages, browser type etc.
Difficult collaborating with users who are difficult to meet and difficult to know
(Difficult giving them flowers!)
Visits to study hall and website BHIC in 2001 and 2010
So…So…
How to meet these users?
How to get to know these users?
In order of successful collaborating with them
About me, and my motivation to participate
Meet TheoMeet Theo
"I only participate in the Amsterdam population registry project, and yes, as someone from Amsterdam you hope to meet some of your ancestors this way"
Meet MaartenMeet Maarten
"Each time when I have finished a scan and push the ‘send’ button,I experience a moment of happiness"
Meet DitekeMeet Diteke
"Reading the old handwritings offers challenging puzzles which improve my paleography skills"
Could she check on other people’s transcripts?
Contact her!
Meet another TheoMeet another Theo
"Personally I enjoy the many discussions on the forum, because you might be doing the data entry on your own, but you're not alone"
Meet DorethéMeet Dorethé
"I find it to be a bit of a sport to try and find info on the internet or, when it concerns digital archives, from databases"
Meet DorethéMeet Dorethé
Got to know her via forum Posted 1.147 messages
Many people even believe she’s staff of the BHIC
She got flowers for helping us doing ‘our’ reference work
Meet PaulineMeet Pauline
Enthusiastic historian Lives in Nuenen, Brabant Has an interest in
archeology, monuments, Vincent van Gogh, recreation, tourism, village marketing and poetry
Quick win for
interaction
on Twitter!
“Welcome, and obviously we are very proud of this
letter by Vincent van Gogh”
“Very special! And inspiring. Also nice to be followed back. This
is the home of Van Gogh’s father”
Profiles for us(e)Profiles for us(e)
Our digital users provide us with an amazing amount of quality information about themselves, their interests, motivation etc.
But how do you use this information?
And do you?
Meet BenMeet Ben
Independent software developer
Blogs about crowdsourced transcription projects
Developed FromThePageA free collaborative transcription platform
Meet Ben’s volunteerMeet Ben’s volunteer
“You're going to laugh, but… I have been transcribing just a few pages at a time lately because I didn't want to finish before the next diary is posted! I didn't want to run out of diary, in other words.”
Statistics for us(e)Statistics for us(e)
Statistics Websites, applications, social media etc.
Who are they? What do they search for? What collections do they use? What way do they participate? Etc.
Meet MarissaMeet Marissa
CEO at Yahoo! Previously vice president
of user experice at Google Oversaw layout of
Google’s search page
“Focus on the user”
The one blue is more greenish than the other
blue (really!)
A/B testing pointed out that in fact the blue-blue
was more clicked on than the green-blue
(really!)
Let data decideLet data decide
What you can’t learn from the info of one user, but can learn from the statistics of a crowd
“Let the data decide”--Marissa Mayer
Most popular
items are about new
resources… and women!
Nice
effe
ct
Start of putting stuff inthe news letter that hadproven to be clicked on
Better effect
Second chance?Second chance?
So let’s try this at home…
(Well, at the archives that is,with our alderman archives project)
Second chance?Second chance?
What do users need, what do they tell us?
What do data tell us users really use?
Where can we meet these users?
Can we collaborate with them?
Users search for names of people and
places
Users make deeds accessible by making short summaries of
them, including names of people and places
Users willing to scan and index archives meet each other on
our forum, where we can
also meet them
We may import these indexes in our system, linked to our inventories and scans, if scans are already available
We even link to photographed resources on other websites, not worrying too much about quality and such
ResultsResults
Users helped us to make 225.000 deeds accessible through our website within 2 years
User community provides us with a steady stream of fresh records
This database quickly became our most popular one for non specific genealogical research
What’s next?What’s next?
Acquire photos of the archives from users and import them into the database
Let software extract names of people and places from the summary text into separate fields
Make archives accessible on a basic level, and let indexes be enriched through crowdsourcing
Call for actionCall for action
Meet your digital users & know them better
Use various channels & sources of information
Improve your services in collaboration with users
(And less is often more!)
Thank you!Thank you!
Any questions?
Thank you for staying with me!
Please meet me after my talk, and online