Let me tell you about my grandpa: jessica sedgwick archivist for women in medicine harvard medical school 13 august 2009 A content analysis of user annotations to online archival collections Image from Beyond Brown Paper, courtesy Plymouth State University

Archivists are very busy! …and other limits on archival description

Meanwhile… Archivists are experimenting with “2.0” approaches

Concerns about user-engagement: What is the value? Cost of implementation and maintenance Loosening our grip on authority control Image from Library of Congress, “1930s-40s in Color” set on Flickr

Study design Content analysis Collected publicly-contributed user comments from online archival collections Analyzed comments against a set of categories Counted each comment toward as many categories as it represented

Online collections examined Keweenaw Digital Archives Beyond Brown Paper Polar Bear Expedition Digital Collections

Data set Total comments collected: 568 Breakdown for each site:

Codebook

Results overall

#1 Subject identification Image from Beyond Brown Paper, courtesy Plymouth State University

#2 Providing further information Image courtesy Michigan Tech Archives

#3 Linking to further resources Image courtesy Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

#4 Establishing personal connection Image from Beyond Brown Paper, courtesy Plymouth State University

#6 Correction Image courtesy Michigan Tech Archives

Results compared across sites

Implications Users are willing to contribute, how willing are archivists to let them? Considerations: Encouraging and managing comments Maintaining clear spaces of authority Making user comments searchable Incorporating user comments into archival description

Encouraging your user community Image and screenshot from Joyner Library Digital Collections, Eastern Carolina University

Authority control Image courtesy Michigan Tech Archives

Searching across comments Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

Incorporating user-contributed content Image from Beyond Brown Paper, courtesy Plymouth State University

Incorporating user-contributed content Image courtesy Michigan Tech Archives

Final thoughts and questions How is user engagement affected by: format of materials (textual vs. photographic) amount of metadata provided Implications for finding aids? How to verify accuracy (and why bother?) How to encourage and shape user engagement?

Thank you! Complete study available online: Image from Beyond Brown Paper, courtesy Plymouth State University twitter: jm_sedgwick Special thanks to The Donald Peterson Student Award Committee