Using crowdsourcing to create the UK SoundMap - Richard Ranft, British Library

Metadata & Web 2.0 - 4th annual CIGS seminar

23 Feb 2011

National Library of Scotland

2001: ‘Listen to Nature’ maps www.bl.uk/listentonature

‘Sounds Familiar’ British dialects map www.bl.uk/soundsfamiliar

Archival Sound Recordings maps www.bl.uk/sounds

Radio Aporee map

Bullet 1 Bullet2

Bullet 3

UK Sound Map: Aims

Explore potential for web mash-ups for digital

scholarship

Partnership with Noise Futures Network

Map evolution of national soundscapes by aggregating

everyday sounds from around UK for 12 months

Test low-cost, innovative techniques for

crowdsourcing research data with real-time capture-&-

publish model

“Twitter without typing…

User generated BBC Radio 4

The Youtube of the spoken word”

Audioboo app

Free app, launched March 2009

iPhone & Android ‘smart’phones

-or, Audioboo via any web browser

5 minutes limit

Twitter, Facebook integrationContributors 80,000

Recordings 280,000

Listens 11 m. (66,000/day)

Top contributors UK, USA, Germany

280,000 Audioboos

Method

‘Pro’ Audioboo account – magic tags

Pilot in Sheffield city July 2010

UK-wide August 2010

Use of social networks

Amazon cloud service

FLAC audio, metadata (tags, #uksm, photo,

time/date, GPS)

capture

FLAC, metadata

archive

mp3, metadata

publish

?#uksm moderation magic tag

Web browser recording & upload

Challenges

Legal / reputational risks of user-generated content: deliberate or inadvertent capture of 3rd party rights defamatory remarks invasions of privacy or compromised confidentiality

Mitigated by: moderation of all contributions Take-down notice Clear instructions to contributors Some legal protections (incidental licences, reasonable doubt)

Technical quality - lowering the quality bar?

iPhone : 22kHz, 16-bit mono FLAC

Other phones – large variety of other files

Omni mic – wind noise

Web uploads – large variety, stereo PCM wav but also highly compressed formats

iPhone - white noise spectrum

9.99 Hz 97.96 960.63 9420.40

-140.00

-120.00

-100.00

-80.00

-60.00

-40.00

-20.00

dBFS

anti-aliasing filter

speech emphasis

Android phone - white noise spectrum

Results

Whose brainchild was this? Will anyone really be interested in sounds originating from 2010? Don't we have anything better to do with taxpayers money? (a Blogger)

The increasingly innovative British Library (BBC Technology blog)

@dollyskilbeck: Can't describe the pure pleasure and pride in contributing to @UK_SoundMap #uksm #audioboo (Twitter)

Winner, UK social media communications award (public sector category)

Results II

1,600 recordings from July 10- Feb ‘11 260 contributors (≈ 4 per contributor) 82% made with mobiles. The remainder used dedicated audio

recorders Voices and direct human actions Amplified sounds and music Machinery Sounds of wind and water Animals

Emerging themes (e.g. decline of whistling in public; female voices predominate in public announcements)

Very limited metadata

Moderating the data

6% recordings rejected to date:

Reasons for rejection: Copyright (music/broadcast/performance) 36% Poor quality (wind noise, low level) 22% No geodata 19% Obscenities, time wasters, advertising etc 19% Recorded outside UK 3%

Locations

time and tide bell, Bosta (Outer Hebrides, Scotland)

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Next project: Evolving Englishes map

Read 6 words:controversy, garage, neither, scone, schedule, attitude

Or, read 'Mr Tickle‘:

• It was half past eight on a rather warm, sunny morning. In his small house at the other side of the wood, Mr Tickle was fast asleep. He was having a dream. It must have been a very funny dream because it made him laugh out loud and that woke him up. He sat up in bed, stretched his extraordinary long arms and yawned an enormous yawn….

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Conclusions

Selection - still a manual process

Low quality – mass observation

Simple to implement: RSS feeds to Google map mashup

Cost effective way to rapidly collect large amounts of data

Augments existing research collections

Engages wider public with your institution; ‘democratises the curator's role’

27

Thanks for listening!

http://sounds.bl.uk/uksoundmap

http://twitter.com/uk_soundmap

http://www.bl.uk/evolvingenglish/maplisten.html

richard.ranft@bl.uk

www.bl.uk/listentonaturewww.bl.uk/soundsfamiliar

www.bl.uk/sounds http://radio.aporee.org/

http://audioboo.fm/www.bl.uk/evolvingenglish/