Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Commenting Features in Digital Collections

Searching for examples of public institutions, library or archival, which have added a commenting feature to their digital collection or catalogue is not easy! Type in any variation of the comment in a blog search engine, and you will likely retrieve every blog in existence because blogs often allow visitors to add a comment. Working with digitization blog, we wanted to compose a list of public institutions, particularly ones with digital collections, that offer a "add a comment" feature. If a picture is worth a 1,000 words, then a commenting feature in a digital collection may be priceless! Imagine how many visitors to a digital collection may have a story to tell about an image.

A commenting feature allows users to post a message on a web site for others to read. A visitor submits a message, which may be reviewed by an editor or screened by a filter, and the approved comments are displayed, often in chronological order, on the web site for the general public. Some commenting features require a person to type in a series of random, distorted letters (also known as CAPTCHA) in order to minimize the risk of spam. A commenting feature may also require some form of registration before a person is allowed to read or write a message.

SEARCH STRATEGY

We conducted a blog search to identify seven institutions worldwide using an “add comment” feature to enhance their collection. Let us know if there is another library or archive that we missed, since we plan on conducting a Delphi study:

1. Polar Bear Expedition Digital Collections

2. Edmonton Activist Literature (Streetprint)

3. ERITREAN PRINT AND ORAL CULTURE (Streeprint)

4. Scrawl: Artwork from the Streets (Streetprint)

5. Hennepin County Library

A special thanks to LibrarianInBlack for writing about the commenting feature on Hennepin's web site in her blog, which was the first post that I found when searching for commenting features.

Another special thanks to Archivemati.ca for pointing out two more examples:

6. Zoekplaatjes.nl – municipal archives hosts a forum allowing visitors to comment on unidentified photographs.

7. The Diary of Samuel Pepys - blog for the digitized Gutenberg Project version of Samuel Pepys diary allowing visitors to annotate text.

Also, thanks to Jen P. for pointing out another digital collection offering a commenting feature:

8. Hudson River Valley Heritage. Some actual comments selected by Jen P. as examples: http://www.hrvh.org/u?/larc,81

This list is the start of more research into commenting features, since a lot of librarians seem to be curious about what works and what doesn't. The spark for our project to look more closely as commenting features came about as we evaluated options for making an existing digital collection more "Web 2.0ish" At one point, it looked liked we were going to turn our collection into a Flickr-like web site, so read the next post, which revolves around the question of how should we evaluate Flickr as a host for digital collections, as opposed to an open source solution, such as StreetPrint (University of Alberta).

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Flickr as a Digital Collection Host

Several libraries use Flickr, and the idea of using Flickr to manage and display a digital collection is not new. A Google search of: flickr "digital collection" returns its first result as a blog post from October 2005 with the title Flickr as a digital collection hosting example, where the author suggests a "...practical example of what libraries could do with Flickr from a small digital collection perspective." We know it is possible to use Flickr to host a digital collection, but when should we use Flickr? How would we recognize a potential digital collection as being ideally suited for hosting on Flickr? What criteria should we use to evaluate Flickr as a host?

In an attempt to answer the question, “When should libraries use Flickr to host digital collections?” a brief search of the professional literature was conducted. A search of the library literature in three major databases does not result in many articles on Flickr, which is in contrast to the hundreds, if not thousands, of blog postings about it.

SEARCH STRATEGY

Here are the results of a quick search for articles on Flickr in three databases using a simple keyword search: flickr OR flick*r

1. Library Literature & Information Science with Full Text
-flickr (2 results)
-flick*r (5 results)

The subject heading suggested by the thesaurus when we search for “Flickr” was Internet/Terminology.

2. Library and Information Science Abstracts (LISA)

-flickr (3 results)
-flick*r (9 results)

LISA offered a specific subject heading for the organization, or corporate entity: Flickr.com

3. Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts (LISTA)

· flic*r (41 results)
· flickr (13 results)

LISTA applied several subject headings, with no discernable conformity, to articles mentioning Flickr. Here is a sample: DIGITAL images; PHOTOGRAPHY -- Computer network resources; PHOTOGRAPHY -- Digital techniques; PHOTOGRAPHY -- Social aspects; SOCIAL networks; FILE sharing (Computers); IMAGES, Photographic, etc. Also, FLICKR Online (Company) was a subject heading.

ARTICLES

From the search strategy describe above, a few articles on Flickr were retrieved. Aside from a review of a book on Flickr in Library Journal, what did we find relevant?

1. Harris, C. “Flickr and BubbleShare: Photo-sharing sites.” School Library Journal 52, no. 7 (July 2006): 19.

Briefly explores Flickr as a digital collection host for libraries: “This is your chance to jump onboard at your library. If the technical benefits of picture hosting and sharing aren't enough to excite you, imagine creating a rotating display of student pictures on your library's Web site.” A short article, but one of the only articles to focus on Flickr. Many articles discuss “social software,” or Web 2.0, so it stands out when an article concentrates on one tool. As we move from awareness of these tools, and some of them become more established, then perhaps we shall see specific articles?

2. Sauers, Michael. “Internet connection. Fun with Flickr.” Action for Libraries 32, no. 3 (Mar 2006).

Tools used by searchers using Flickr are listed. I was unable to read the full-text of this article, so I only read the abstract.

CONSIDERATIONS

A much broader literature search is needed before any conclusions may be drawn, and by “broader,” it would seem that any research on Flickr as a potential host of digital collections sponsored by libraries has to be conducted in blogs and listservs for now.

From the perspective of evaluating Flickr as a sustainable host for digital collections put up by libraries, here are some points to keep in mind from Flickr’s FAQs:

--a free version is “guaranteed” to always exist
--using the free version, one may only upload 20 MB per month
--inactive free accounts may be deleted after 90 days of inactivity
--free accounts only display up to 200 photos, or the 200 most recent
--photos will not be deleted unless you delete them
--each photo must be less than 5 MB (on the free account)
--TIFFs can be uploaded, which is most likely the format being scanned for master copies by institutions maintaining a digital collection, but they are converted and stored as JPEGs (the most likely format used to display images in a digital collection)
--Flickr offers many copyright options, and one can even prevent people from downloading the images.

Based on the information above, it would seem that a digital collection could be hosted, managed, and maintained on Flickr. At the same time, there are limitations that should be planned for when considering Flickr as a host.

The success of using Flickr to host a digital collection, like any other hosting solution, depends on what it is being used for by librarians (e.g. photographs of your library, community events, etc.). Flickr offers libraries with limited resources and staffing an opportunity to provide access to a small digital collection. Although “digital collection” has not been defined here, our perception is that libraries have used Flickr as an online photo album, but what about using Flickr to host a digital collection in place of a more traditional solution, such as a server and content management system (e.g. CONTENTdm, Streetprint.org, MySQL-backed web site, etc.)? Flickr makes it easy to upload images, and it enhances them with commenting, tagging, and searching features.