Using Flickr to run a community collection Alun Edwards, University of Oxford: RunCoCo

Matchbox submitted to The Great War Archive This item is from The Great War Archive, University of Oxford ( © MAUREEN ROGERS George Cavan was a Company Sergeant Major in the Glasgow Highlanders He lived with his family, his wife Jean and 3 daughters, in the Drill Hall in Carluke, Scotland. While away at training camp the orders came through to dispatch to France. The train he was on with his troops went through his home station but did not stop there Website:

George threw out onto the platform a matchbox containing a note to his family On one side: the name of his wife and on the other: his message Someone picked up the matchbox and delivered it to the family This item is from The Great War Archive, University of Oxford ( © MAUREEN ROGERS George Cavan was killed just a few days after arriving at the front in France on the 13th April, He lies in an unmarked grave but is commemorated on the Ploegsteert Memorial. Website:

Videos on YouTube, incl. show-reel

The Great War Archive In 2008 the University of Oxford used the general public to build on a freely-available, online archive of the manuscripts of many of the British poets from the First World War They contributed to a community collection Website: Funded by JISC (for 4 months only), so now we use Flickr to receive contributions.

2008: Simple online submissions process Contributors asked to agree to basic terms & conditions of the license Contributors enter basic metadata Offered a large open ‘notes’ field for further information or anecdotes An admin system allowed reviewers to: check items for their validity; correct or add to the metadata; flag items of particular interest/value Website:

Offer on the spot digitisation and advice A ‘Submissions Day Pack’ guided libraries etc. to run their own day 2008: The project collaborated with organisations ‘Roadshows’/submissions days

Website: Photo submitted by the nephew of the William Gaunt, (seated here) Nothing particularly unusual in this photo – which had been on the mantle-piece in William’s widow’s house? This item is from The Great War Archive, University of Oxford ( © Jill Rosswww.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/gwa

Getting Your Message Out There RSS Wiki Mindmaps Blogs Alun Edwards (July 2010) Learning Technologies Group, University of Oxford oucs.ox.ac.uk/

Blogging

Online photo & video management and sharing application Discuss and Mobile Upload Group PoolsTag Maps Bookmarking

 Flickr’s database structure:  every image is associated with its creator or owner first  then with any groups or sets it might have been added to  then with any free-text tags that might have been assigned to it  and finally with the electronic metadata that the camera added to the original snapshot

 Flickr is one of those ideas that depends on interconnectivity  Your pictures are of interest to your contacts:  your weather pictures are of interest to other users of the weather photos group  your “weather” tag shows up in the RSS readers of others with the same interest  while you forgot to add the "weather" tag to that great shot of a cloud you took the other day, you did remember to add “cloud”, which means the image shows up alongside other clouds  some passing stranger helps you out by adding the “weather” tag for you anyway.

Whale Story socialmedia/2010/10/13 /crowdsourcing-can-do- anything-including- proving-that-whales-can- migrate-6000-miles/  For the world of archives and museums Flickr is a cyberworld full of ephemera, a 21st century “cabinet of curiosities”  Pools of Digitised objects  One-to-Many Internet publishing model  Creates an online visual community from all corners of the globe  The best bits of Flickr come from:  adding lots of contacts whose photos you like  exploring  commenting on photos will often get people following you in return and soon enough you find yourself in a community.

Flickr as a means of social participation Nina Simon The Participatory Museum:

Each stage has something special to offer Nina Simon The Participatory Museum:  Stage one provides visitors with access to the content that they seek.  Stage two provides an opportunity for inquiry and for visitors to take action and ask questions.  Stage three lets visitors see where their interests and actions fit in the wider community of visitors to the institution.  Stage four helps visitors connect with particular people—staff members and other visitors—who share their content and activity interests.  Stage five makes the entire institution feel like a social place, full of potentially interesting, challenging, enriching encounters with other people.

Who’s on Flickr?  Archives, libraries, museums are experimenting with Web 2.0 environments, asking the general public to interact with their materials through social tagging, commenting etc.  You’re no one if you’re not on Flickr  The Commons  Tate Modern works with Flickr on projects that invite you to submit photos through to their Flickr groups e.g. How we are now, 10 years of the Tate Modern  Flickr-pooled from an open public submission and then taken into the gallery.  The Flickr comments still in the pool are interesting. Website:

Library of Congress  users able to tag and discuss images to add further info  3 LOC images from 1865 thought to have been pictures of different events were all revealed (by a user) to have been taken at Abraham Lincoln's 2nd inauguration

Brooklyn Museum  Archives &; Museum Informatics: Museums and the Web 2008: Paper: Bernstein, S., Where Do We Go From Here? Continuing with Web 2.0 at the Brooklyn Museum Website:

Singapore- no camera by on Flickr  MoMa – collects images of visits

k/ww1lit

k/ww1lit

Project photos on Flickr

Some project photos publicly available on Flickr

The Great War Archive Exit Strategy Although the submission process ended in June 2008 the project has used Flickr to allow further items to be contributed. We could assess potential for user tagging / comments.

Flickr: No formal submission/metadata A future project might enhance metadata? Comments can be facile or funny and can sometimes be incredibly informative

1917-reservists called up and prepared 1917-временно мобилизирани Българи Flickr image from The Great War Archive Flickr Group by allilinin

Public contributors uploaded 3,500 digital objects to website in 4 months The project uploaded 600 items (about 3,000 digital objects) from 5 submissions days A Flickr group continues to collect items (since July 2008 over 2,750 uploads to date) Public contributions to The Great War Archive Over 6,500 items collected March-June 2008, 90% submitted by the public direct through our website Website: 3,

Findings  Content created outside of the traditional boundaries can provide rich resources  International reach  Taps into existing communities rather than encourages people to join new ones  Leverage other online presences to build  Needs monitoring but becomes largely self- sustaining  You will get meaningless tat and golden nuggets

If we used Flickr again  Stipulate a license  Track activity more closely  Clearer instructions

“Kontaktanzeigen” “Mirth in Wartime (c.1918)”, Flickr image from The Great War Archive Flickr Group by postaletrice Treue Humor Alkohol-und-Tabakkonsum Spontaneität Alles was Spaß macht! Sportlich unternehmungslustig Ich mag Ehrlichkeit Europeana, the DNB and the University of Oxford are looking for partners to help run The Great War Archive in Germany and beyond... “Wir suchen...”

Conclusions  Web 2.0  The institution reconsiders the relationship with the user  Can be used at different levels for different purposes  Useful Pilot – what’s out there?  Breath life into a project long after funding has gone

RunCoCo RunCoCo: How to run a community collection online  RunCoCo offering training, support, networking, e.g.  Two-way engagement  Sharing links to other relevant resources and exemplar crowdsourcing initiatives using Delicious  Maintaining momentum with the blog  Disseminating key software tools, methodologies, and work-flows developed under The Great War Archive and beyond. Developing an open source system (called CoCoCo) to collect digital objects Contact RunCoCo Alun Edwards OUCS University of Oxford