Session Type

Event

Start Date

28-4-2021 10:45 AM

End Date

28-4-2021 11:25 AM

Keywords

Hidden collections, Crowdsourcing, Zooniverse, Operation War Diary, Digital Humanities, Metadata, Quality Control, Mass collaboration

Abstract

The crowdsourcing of metadata to expose and promote hidden collections is a significant and growing development in libraries, archives and museums, and offers hitherto unparalleled mass-collaborative potential for digital humanities projects. Originating from the field of citizen science, the online Zooniverse platform has been successfully utilized for this purpose by institutions including the Imperial War Museum, the Folger and the Huntington. This session presents recently published original research1 in order to analyze and explain the automated quality control features of this major metadata crowdsourcing digital platform. The results, it is argued, are truly revolutionary. We conclude with a brief description of the ‘Project Builder’ feature which enables other institutions – and perhaps even yours – to create new experimental projects aimed at exposing hidden collections via the online crowdsourcing of robust, reliable and accurate metadata.

1 Barber, S.T. (2018). The Zooniverse is expanding: crowdsourced solutions to the hidden collections problem and the rise of the revolutionary cataloging interface, Journal of Library Metadata, 18:2, 85-111. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/19386389.2018.1489449

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Share

COinS
 
Apr 28th, 10:45 AM Apr 28th, 11:25 AM

Crowdsourcing Metadata: the Revolutionary Cataloging Interface and How it Can Help YOUR Library Expose and Promote Hidden Collections

The crowdsourcing of metadata to expose and promote hidden collections is a significant and growing development in libraries, archives and museums, and offers hitherto unparalleled mass-collaborative potential for digital humanities projects. Originating from the field of citizen science, the online Zooniverse platform has been successfully utilized for this purpose by institutions including the Imperial War Museum, the Folger and the Huntington. This session presents recently published original research1 in order to analyze and explain the automated quality control features of this major metadata crowdsourcing digital platform. The results, it is argued, are truly revolutionary. We conclude with a brief description of the ‘Project Builder’ feature which enables other institutions – and perhaps even yours – to create new experimental projects aimed at exposing hidden collections via the online crowdsourcing of robust, reliable and accurate metadata.

1 Barber, S.T. (2018). The Zooniverse is expanding: crowdsourced solutions to the hidden collections problem and the rise of the revolutionary cataloging interface, Journal of Library Metadata, 18:2, 85-111. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/19386389.2018.1489449