DOCUMENTING THE NOW
CHRIS FREELANDASSOCIATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIAN
Supporting Scholarly Use & Preservation of Social Media Content
COLLECTING HISTORY AS IT HAPPENSTwitter was a primary source of information about the protests in and in the name of Ferguson.
How can organizations archive Twitter data along with other collections to make a comprehensive data set available for research in ways that are ethically sound & in compliance with the Twitter Terms of Service?
#Ferguson
ABOUT THE PROJECTCollaborative project between:
• 2 year project, funded by Andrew W. Mellon Foundation• Feb 1, 2016 – Jan 31, 2018
• $517,000• Funding project coordinator, application development, subawards to collaborators, Advisory
Board meetings, equipment & outreach
BUILDING OFF EXISTING FERGUSON EFFORTS
Documenting Ferguson
Ferguson Collecting Initiative
Joel Levy, “Ferguson, Night 3, photo 4,” WUSTL Digital Gateway Image Collections & Exhibitions, accessed August 12, 2015, http://omeka.wustl.edu/omeka/items/show/8669.
DOCUMENTING THE NOW PROJECT GOALS1. Create the DocNow application
• Cloud-ready, open-source application for collecting tweets, associated Web content, & metadata• Create data visualizations & data exports
2. Create a Ferguson social media data set for research & preservation• Use Tweets and related data (Documenting Ferguson, oral histories) to create a data set that scholars
can use to answer research questions about Ferguson protests
3. Produce a white paper• Address ethical, copyright & access issues for collection, preservation & dissemination of Twitter data
4. Convene an Advisory Board• Scholars, activists & technologists who can help shape application
5. Build a community of users & advocates around DocNow• Identify other scholars interested in using DocNow for their own research
PROJECT TEAM
Chris
Bergis
Ed
Desiree
Francis
Alexandra
Dan
Co-PIs Project Coordinator Developers
ROLE OF LIBRARIES & ARCHIVES IN COLLECTING HISTORY AS IT HAPPENS
Mark Regester, “Protester holding a sign,” WUSTL Digital Gateway Image Collections & Exhibitions, accessed March 5, 2016. http://documentingferguson.wustl.edu/omeka/items/show/8266
CURATING VS COLLECTINGTraditional Appraisal:• Includes research and input from different individuals • an evaluation of the collection content within the
framework of a collection development policy • an assessment of the content for research use• an assessment of originality and authenticity• ownership transfers to archive
Collecting at scale:• No selection• No assessment of content• No quality control• Contributor / author retains rights • Contextual curation via research projects
Mark Regester, “Woman with Obama sign Greater Grace Church,” WUSTL Digital Gateway Image Collections & Exhibitions, accessed August 12, 2015, http://omeka.wustl.edu/omeka/items/show/8280.
Courtesy Sonya Rooney, University Archivist, WUSTL Libraries
ETHICAL ISSUES WITH ARCHIVING TWITTER DATATwitter was heavily used during protests
Public
Central gathering point for other social media channels• Publish a photo on Instagram or Vine & Share on Twitter
But what about:• Identifying / Incriminating photos• Honoring intent
• If we’ve captured a Tweet that someone has deleted, do we • Do nothing, and keep it in full in the archive?• Mark it as deleted, but still make it available for research use?• Delete it from our archive? White paper will address these
issues and more…