Metadata enrichment for digital heritage: users as co-creators

This paper espouses the concept of metadata enrichment through an expert and user-focused approach to metadata creation and management. To this end, it is argued the Web 2.0 paradigm enables users to be proactive metadata creators. As Shirky (2008, p.47) argues Web 2.0’s social tools enable “action by loosely structured groups, operating without managerial direction and outside the profit motive”. Lagoze (2010, p. 37) advises, “the participatory nature of Web 2.0 should not be dismissed as just a popular phenomenon [or fad]”. Carletti (2016) proposes a participatory digital cultural heritage approach where Web 2.0 approaches such as crowdsourcing can be sued to enrich digital cultural objects. It is argued that “heritage crowdsourcing, community-centred projects or other forms of public participation”. On the other hand, the new collaborative approaches of Web 2.0 neither negate nor replace contemporary standards-based metadata approaches. Hence, this paper proposes a mixed metadata approach where user created metadata augments expert-created metadata and vice versa. The metadata creation process no longer remains to be the sole prerogative of the metadata expert. The Web 2.0 collaborative environment would now allow users to participate in both adding and re-using metadata. The case of expert-created (standards-based, top-down) and user-generated metadata (socially-constructed, bottom-up) approach to metadata are complementary rather than mutually-exclusive. The two approaches are often mistakenly considered as dichotomies, albeit incorrectly (Gruber, 2007; Wright, 2007) . This paper espouses the importance of enriching digital information objects with descriptions pertaining the about-ness of information objects. Such richness and diversity of description, it is argued, could chiefly be achieved by involving users in the metadata creation process. This paper presents the importance of the paradigm of metadata enriching and metadata filtering for the cultural heritage domain. Metadata enriching states that a priori metadata that is instantiated and granularly structured by metadata experts is continually enriched through socially-constructed (post-hoc) metadata, whereby users are pro-actively engaged in co-creating metadata. The principle also states that metadata that is enriched is also contextually and semantically linked and openly accessible. In addition, metadata filtering states that metadata resulting from implementing the principle of enriching should be displayed for users in line with their needs and convenience. In both enriching and filtering, users should be considered as prosumers, resulting in what is called collective metadata intelligence

Finding a Way Through the Crowd: How Keyword Choices Affect Discoverability in Crowdsourced Archival Tagging

This study explores the challenges archivists face when determining how to structure a crowdsourced tagging initiative in their collections. Specifically, the study aims to research the differences in controlled vocabulary tagging and folksonomy tagging in volunteer based digital archival tagging initiatives. The current literature focuses on the merits of crowdsourced metadata in its various forms, but few sources explore which formats lead to better discoverability. In order to begin to answer this question, five library, museum, and archives professionals were interviewed and asked to discuss their institution’s crowdsourcing projects in depth. Their answers were then mined for overarching themes and insights into crowdsourcing and vocabulary type. In the end, it was discovered that there is no one correct vocabulary system for crowdsourcing, but that by answering key questions about specific institutions, collections, and volunteers, a unique approach can be created for each new project to ensure the best outcome.Master of Science in Library Scienc

Re-envisioning access for the digital preservation community: challenges, opportunities and recommendations

Digital material is not new and has been preserved for a couple of decades now. With a growing digital preservation community, and a growing number of practitioners identifying as doing something digital, there is an understanding that this material is here to stay. More and more institutions are publishing digital strategies or creating networks focusing on digital material. However, when looking at this in practice there seems to be a disconnect between what is being stated within these networks and strategies and what is being made accessible to the public. This thesis will explore this disconnect by first understanding how the digital preservation community has been providing access to this material and how they are envisioning it in the future. This exploration surfaces both a) how digital material can no longer be seen as separate from the infrastructure that ensures its materiality and b) how the provision of access is not just a technological question, but also a social, legal and ethical one. This thesis will also seek to explore the ways in which those who identify as digital preservation practitioners articulate their role and responsibilities. It will do so by drawing on relevant literature and gaining perspectives from practitioners and other relevant participants through in-depth interviews. Building from this exploration, this thesis will offer recommendations for how this practice can move forward in negotiating the provision of access to digital material in the online public space of the internet. This research is part of a collaborative project with The National Archives, UK where a number of the ideas encountered during this work were explored in practice. Some of these results have helped shape the recommendations given in the final chapters of this thesis

Digitaalse teadmuse arhiveerimine – teoreetilis-praktiline uurimistöö Rahvusarhiivi näitel

Väitekirja elektrooniline versioon ei sisalda publikatsioone.Digitaalse informatsiooni pidevalt kiirenev juurdekasv on aidanud rõhutada ka olulise informatsiooni säilitamise vajadust. Säilitamine ei tähenda siinkohal pelgalt füüsilist varundamist, vaid ka informatsiooni kasutatavuse ja mõistetavuse tagamist. See tähendab, et tegelikkuses on vaja hoolitseda ka selle eest, et meil oleks olemas vajalik riist- ja tarkvara arhiveeritud teabe kasutamiseks. Kui seda ei ole, siis saab mõningatel juhtudel kasutada emulaatoreid, mis matkivad konkreetset aegunud süsteemi ja võimaldavad niiviisi vanu faile avada. Samas, kui tehnoloogia iganemist on võimalik ette näha, siis oleks mõistlik failid juba varakult püsivamasse vormingusse ümber konverteerida või andmekandja kaasaegsema vastu vahetada. Nii emuleerimine, konverteerimine kui ka nende kombineerimine aitavad säilitada informatsiooni kasutatavust, kuid ei pruugi tagada autentset mõistetavust, kuna digitaalse teabe esitus sõltub alati säilitatud bittide tõlgendamisest. Näiteks, kui luua WordPad tarkvara abil üks dokument ja avada seesama dokument Hex Editor Neo abil, siis näeme seda faili kahendkujul, Notepad++ näitab RTFi kodeeringut, Microsoft Word 2010 ja LibreOffice Writeri esitustes võime märgata juba mitmeid erinevusi. Kõik eelloetletud esitused on tehnoloogilises mõttes õiged. Faili avamisel veateateid ei teki, sest tarkvara seisukohast lähtudes peavadki esitused sellised olema. Siinjuures oluline rõhutada, et ka korrektne esitus võib jääda kasutajale mõistetamatuks – see, et andmed on säilinud, et neid on võimalik lugeda ja esitada, ei garanteeri paraku, et neid õigesti mõistetakse. Mõistetavuse tagamiseks tuleb alati arvestada ka lõppkasutajaskonnaga. Seetõttu uuribki antud töö võimalusi, kuidas toetada teadmuse (mõistetava informatsiooni) digitaalset arhiveerimist tuginedes eelkõige parimale praktikale, praktilistele eksperimentidele Rahvusarhiivis ja interdistsiplinaarsetele (nt infotehnoloogia kombineerimine arhiivindusega) võtetele.Digital preservation of knowledge is a very broad and complex research area. Many aspects are still open for research. According to the literature, the accessibility and usability of digital information have been more investigated than the comprehensibility of important digital information over time. Although there are remedies (e.g. emulation and migration) for mitigating the risks related to the accessibility and usability, the question how to guarantee understandability/comprehensibility of archived information is still ongoing research. Understanding digital information first requires a representation of the archived information, so that a user could then interpret and understand it. However, it is a not-so-well-known fact that the digital information does not have any fixed representation before involving some software. For example, if we create a document in WordPad and open the same file in Hex Editor Neo software, then we will see the binary representation which is also correct but not suitable for human users, as humans are not used to interpreting binary codes. When we open that file in Notepad++, then we can see the structure of the RTF coding. Again, this is the correct interpretation of this file, but not understandable for the ordinary user, as it shows the technical view of the file format structure. When we open that file in Microsoft Word 2010 or LibreOffice Writer, then we will notice some changes, although the original bits are the same and no errors are displayed by the software. Thus, all representations are technologically correct and no errors will be displayed to the user when they are opening this file. It is important to emphasise that in some cases even the original representation may be not understandable to the users. Therefore, it is important to know who the main users of the archives are and to ensure that the archived objects are independently understandable to that community over the long term. This dissertation will therefore research meaningful use of digital objects by taking into account the designated users’ knowledge and Open Archival Information System (OAIS) model. The research also includes several practical experimental projects at the National Archives of Estonia which will test some important parts of the theoretical work

Transforming User Knowledge into Archival Knowledge

http://dx.doi.org/10.1045/march2016-karberg "Abstract The users of archives have a vast body of knowledge about the records held in the archives. Some users have participated in the events, some have known the persons involved, some are experts in the subject matters. Their knowledge can cover important gaps that exist in archived knowledge. The objective of this paper is to explore methods to capture user knowledge and transform it to archival knowledge. We investigate the theory and describ..