Opening Collections & Inviting Audiences to

“Seriously Amazing”

Opportunities

06 May 2013

Smithsonian Institution Transcription Services Center

Smithsonian InstitutionTranscription Services Center

Smithsonian Institution Transcription Services Center (SI TSC) offers an interactive learning space and flexible approach to growing audiences and knowledge.

SI TSC allows us to link the rapidly changing online experience with physical collections and partner institutions; as we develop access to successfully digitized SI resources held in digital spaces.

With Success in SI Digitization Objectives, Some Challenges Emerge

As we increase volume of digitized collections and open access, in what ways can we:

– Improve and Increase the Quality of Engagement?

– Increase Access and Use of Resources?

– Create Pathways of Learning and New Knowledge?

– Maintain and Build Trust with Communities of Interest, Stakeholders, and Audiences?

SI-wide Objectives:• Open Data

• Increased Access

• Knowledge Diffusion

Unit Needs:• Transcribing

• Sharing

Solution:

An opportunity to bring togetherSI Objectives, Unit Needs, and Audiences

Objectives Meeting Needs

Baekeland’s Diary has been digitized and is accessible through Collections Search Service… is the knowledge within easily accessible?

Objectives Meeting NeedsBaekeland writes a letter to the Globe, responding to“the pessimistic utterance of Mr. Schiff, the banker, who does not know what is going to become of all our immigrants. I doubt whether they will publish my letter.”

Digitized but unsearchable –uncovering relevant historical context presents a true need to be met

If the contents of the journal are transcribed, then the details can be categorized and discoverable through various search methods

What will help units meet their needs as digitization objectives continue to be met?

Transcription by volunteers –

Crowdsourced Participation

Crowdsourcing Participation for Transcription

• What is crowdsourcing?

– “obtain (information or input into a particular task or project) by enlisting the services of a number of people, either paid or unpaid, typically via the Internet”* - Oxford English Dictionary, 2013

• In reality, crowdsourcing has been integral to Smithsonian Institution practices and certainly predates the internet as a communal and collaborative phenomenon

Notable Moments of Crowdsourcing

• Oxford English Dictionary: The result of a 70 year crowd-sourced adventure in mapping language – volunteers worked through books and marked first instances of new words (1858-1928)

• Secretary Joseph Henry and the Weather:Henry recruited “citizen scientists” across

North and South American to telegraph

daily weather reports, starting in 1849;

these efforts created the first National

weather map and service

Crowdsourcing Models

• Knowledge building: Wikipedia, Encyclopedia of Life (EOL), Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL)

• Identifying Materials: Flickr (SI Archives, BHL)

• Sharing resources: Google docs during Boston Marathon bombing

• Competition and Competitive Collaboration: Building Models or Developing programming

• Teaching and Learning: GitHub, WordPress, other web developers resources

• Funding: Kickstarter, Indie-go-go, Charity Events

Models that suit the intial objectives of the Smithsonian Institution Transcription Services

Center

Crowdsourcing Vital Information

The Power of the Crowd: Google Person Finder and Google Docs offered vital information and places for people to stay or find shelter

and food in a time of uncertainty in Boston

Benefits of Crowdsourced Participation

• Small groups of people performing distributed tasks for greater effect

• Small steps to great volumes of work

• Participation as investment and belonging

• Participation in our model of transcription

– prepares audiences for participation in related future or yet-to-be determined models

– opens doors to new knowledge creation and future research opportunities

Engaging & Cultivating Audiences

• “Engage the public in helping us build knowledge about existing collections, conduct research & make the information we generate available & accessible”

- J. Abrams, 03/20/2013

• Cultivating an audience that participates in innovative ways – Leading that audience to adopt a new way of

thinking about Smithsonian Institution resources: viewing the institution as a trusted digital knowledge repository

Three Models of Transcription

• NYPL: What’s on the Menu

• DIY History – University of Iowa Libraries

• Zooniverse: Old Weather

These three models are examples of successful transcription projects with varying interfaces, levels of required registration, badging, and subject matter.

The What’s on the menu? interface is simple and effective with a clearly stated purpose; also leads to the next project (mapping).

NYPL: What’s on the Menu?

http://menus.nypl.org/

DIY History: Manuscripts, Diaries, Correspondence

http://diyhistory.lib.uiowa.edu/transcribe/collections/show/7

The DIY History interface leads users to choose between projects; users may register or participate without registry and also review and edit.

DIY History: Needs Review (Call to Action)

An example of diary pages that need review – the interface calls the user to action by highlighting each piece that “needs review.”

Old Weather is an engaging interface for “citizen science.” Users must register but are rewarded for progress by earning rank.

Old Weather: Predicting the Future from the Past

Old Weather collects specific details, using templates, from ship logs to re-create weather conditions and predict future weather models.

Considering SI Unit Objectives and Needs

• In prioritizing what kind of tool to create for transcription, we consider again our objectives and needs for specific projects

• Also consider the kinds of materials that have been digitized and their formats

• Allows us to build compelling stories around materials

• Allows us to create templates for the formats of material for ease of transcription

Formats of Materials for Transcription

Field Book Project formats

• Narratives

• Lists

• Tabular data

• Cards (Records)

• Photographs with annotations

• Illustrations with annotations

Smithsonian Institution

Transcription Services Center:

Interface and Features

Smithsonian Institution Transcription Services Center Interface: engaging, graphical, and easy to navigate

Persistent Navigation: In the header, users can find projects, login to their account or sign up for an account

Persistent Navigation: In the header, users can navigate with drop down menus to projects organized in a variety of ways

Featured Projects: Progress, statistics, and related content

Project Details: Progress, statistics, contributors, and related records

Record Card: A transcription template complete with a call for registration and a toggle menu to change the layout

Record Card: The same transcription template laid out horizontally – as well as social share options at the right bottom of page

Journals: Flexible transcription options & to describe illustrations

Catalog Card: A template to define specific information from fields on the card; another call for login to track progress & earn awards

SI Transcription Services Center

• Participation that matters!

• Opportunities to learn from SI collections from specific-to-broad (rather than an in-person model of broad-to-specific)

• Improve digital experiences of audiences and coherence with SI branding based around “seriously amazing”

• Facilitates trust in SI as digital repository: users invested in the transparent, open, accessible process

SI TSC: Proposed Results and Benefits

• Greater degree of accessibility and usefulness of the transcribed material for future researchers

• The ability to discover new levels of knowledge and subject matter relationships through previously impossible digital analyses

• Enhancement of knowledge of Unit collections

• Promotes learning along the Grand Challenges

• Serves as a model for other cultural heritage institutions

Smithsonian InstitutionTranscription Services Center

More broadly, SI TSC offers a learning space and flexible approach to developing access to resources in digital spaces: linking the rapidly changing online experience with physical collections to continue to provide “seriously amazing” experiences.