Outreach and Co-Curation: Engaging with Library Users Assoc. Prof. Axel Bruns ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation Queensland University of Technology –

Social Media Working definition: –W–Websites which build on Web 2.0 technologies to provide space for in-depth social interaction, community formation, and the tackling of collaborative projects.  Social media = Web 2.0 technologies + Community 2

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Threat or Opportunity? Threats? –explosion in content creation new sources of quality content (e.g. blogs, wikis) –competing knowledge structures self-organising knowledge communities Opportunities? –explosion in collaborative metadata generation everyday ‘coolfinding’ (Mark Pesce) points to quality content –self-organising knowledge communities rapid prototyping of new knowledge structures

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Decline of traditional roles in the value chain: producer  distributor  consumer Decline of stable content forms and formats Beyond Content Production

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Anyone Can Write, Edit, Publish, … (as producer) produser (as user) this is produsageprodusage content

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Key Principles Shared across collaborative social media environments: –Open Participation, Communal Evaluation: the community as a whole, if sufficiently large and varied, can contribute more than a closed team of producers, however qualified –Fluid Heterarchy, Ad Hoc Meritocracy: produsers participate as is appropriate to their personal skills, interests, and knowledges; this changes as the produsage project proceeds –Unfinished Artefacts, Continuing Process: content artefacts in produsage projects are continually under development, and therefore always unfinished; their development follows evolutionary, iterative, palimpsestic paths –Common Property, Individual Merit: contributors permit (non-commercial) community use of their intellectual property, and are rewarded by the status capital

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Opportunities for Libraries: Outreach Outreach: –Use social media for updates – viral marketing –Build loyal communities around library activities –Build digital / social media / produsage literacies –Encourage users to become content creators Smart Services CRC Social Media Reports: 1 – State of the Art ( 2 – User Engagement Strategies (

Building Communities Communities are concentric: 14 Marginal members General members Community leaders

Success in Social Media Engaging with produsage communities: 1.Be open. For users (access) and with users (transparency). 2.Seed community processes by providing content and tools. Model desired behaviour, assist productive participation. 3.Support community dynamics and devolve responsibilities. Engage promising community leaders as they emerge. 4.Don’t exploit the community and its work. Utilising their contributions is fine, but you don’t own your users.

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Opportunities for Libraries? Co-Curation: –Harness users to identify community interests –Collaborate with users who are enthusiasts for specific topics –Track new developments across areas of interest –Work with users to curate produsage content –Librarian expertise as added value for produsage content –Encourage community leaders to pursue professional careers

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Folksonomies Golder & HubermanGolder & Huberman, 2005

Evaluating Folksonomies Visualisations of individual users’ del.icio.us tagging patterns, by Kunal AnandKunal Anand

National Library + Flickr = Re-Picture AustraliaRe-Picture Australia

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Growing the Community Encouraging constructive participation: leaders number of members status marginal members encourage commitment model desirable behaviour

Harness Community Community knowledge is key: –Enthusiasts help cover those areas which ‘real’ experts miss –Human knowledge too broad and diverse to rely on specialists alone Towards a creative economy: –Need staff skilled in co- curating and adding value to produsage content –Opportunity for enthusiasts to develop professional careers Image by greenpeace.italiagreenpeace.italia

Viral Marketing Axel Bruns Associate Professor ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation Creative Industries Faculty Queensland University of Technology Brisbane, Australia Blog: Produsage: LinkedIn: Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to ProdusageBlogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage (Peter Lang, 2008)