Hi Jim,
Thanks for bringing this talk to the list - I'm listening now and hoping
to watch the whole thing later today.
I want to push back a little against you on your analysis of the tagging.
I don't think that the point of the tagging is to provide consistency or a
centralized, authoritative structure for exploring the whole pile.
Rather, the point of it is to allow people to produce some metadata to
search with / by, for dimensions that wouldn't be covered by traditional
cataloging.
I don't see this kind of crowdsourcing as a replacement for cataloging in
the library world. Rather, I see it as an extension of (some form of)
cataloging into areas where catalogers don't have the resources to go
(2500 images in this flickr group alone). In addition, I see it as an
extension of cataloging within library data. If my library's catalog
doesn't group together all the Bollywood movies that I love, why shouldn't
I be able to group them together for myself, and for anyone else who might
want to find things grouped that way?
And if my list gets only 75% of the Bollywood movies in the collection,
isn't that a better result for other users than finding that they have to
create a list themselves, each time they want to pull up this group of
movies? I think it's better. And if they look at my list and think, "I can
improve this," that's where things start to get interesting.
This kind of tagging can be a substitute for real cataloging in those
areas where catalogers just don't have time to go. I think it's most
useful as an add-on in areas where real cataloging exists, though. Much
easier to build a good tag library around "steampunk" if you have name and
subject headings that you can use to find things you want to tag.
Have a good one,
Joe Montibello, MLIS
Library Systems Manager
Dartmouth College Library
603.646.9394
joseph.montibello_at_dartmouth.edu
On 11/6/12 6:10 AM, "James Weinheimer" <weinheimer.jim.l_at_GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>Apologies for cross-posting, but I thought both lists would be interested.
>
>I would like to share a talk by Clay Shirkey, the Internet guru entitled
>"Authority in an Age of Open Access"
>http://www.cornell.edu/video/?videoID=2396.
>
>In one part (5 minutes in), he talks about a project of the Smithsonian
>Institution, when they put up several thousand images on Flickr and
>asked people (anyone) to tag them.
>http://www.flickr.com/photos/smithsonian/. He says that this shows what
>happens when you "take a job solely for curators and you invite the
>public in". He then goes on to mention how there is now a huge,
>tremendous list of tags produced by the public and discusses three tags
>of interest to him. He obviously considers the huge list of tags as a
>positive, but his talk goes in directions different from what I want to
>pursue here.
>
>As a cataloger, I look at it a little differently. The public
>undoubtedly did a huge amount of work on these images and all can see
>it, but from the viewpoint of access, what is the result? Of course,
>there are lots of images and I cannot look at them all, but I chose one
>set at random (15 images) "Mary Agnes Chase Field Books"
>http://www.flickr.com/photos/smithsonian/sets/72157629227635110/with/69853
>75963/
>and considered the tags that were--and were not--assigned.
>
>The first thing I discovered was that there is practically no
>consistency of the tags within the set. Just looking at the first two
>photos illustrates it. The first is a wonderful photo of two little
>girls in Brazil labeled "Two of Agnes Chase's favorite subjects."
>http://www.flickr.com/photos/smithsonian/6985375815/in/set-721576292276351
>10/
>and there are several tags:
>children, girls, two, seated, steps, outdoors, Brazil, 1920s, twenties
>
>The next photo, just as interesting, is labeled "Serra da Gramma [sic].
>Dr. Rolfs, jungly bamboo slope between fazendo and Araponga."
>http://www.flickr.com/photos/smithsonian/6985375845/in/set-721576292276351
>10/
>But it lacks any tags at all. I don't know the subject area, but I did
>find "Arapongas (Parana?, Brazil)" in the NAF. Yet, if you look in the
>comment section, one person "Pixel Wrangler" made some suggestions for
>corrections, one of which was actually implemented by the Smithsonian.
>At the same time, the Smithsonian staff member (librarian?) was able to
>explain a couple of fine points. Which led one person to remark "wow
>....." but I don't know if it was the photo this person found so amazing
>or the exchange between "Pixel Wrangler" and "Smithsonian Institution".
>
>Looking at the rest of the photos as a whole, only the first and last
>had geographic location (Brazil), although a total of 9 are in Brazil, 1
>Guatemala, 2 Mexico, 1 Nicaragua, 1 Alaska, 1 Arizona.
>
>8 out of the 15 (the majority) had no tags at all, other than those the
>Smithsonian gave to each one: "Smithsonian Institution Archives,
>Smithsonian Institution, Women's History Month". Of those that had tags,
>some photos had National park areas added, e.g. "Itatiaia National Park"
>which is "Parque Nacional do Itatiaia (Brazil)" in the NAF.
>
>Some conclusions from this highly cursory analysis: looking at the huge
>tag cloud http://www.flickr.com/photos/smithsonian/tags/ should now give
>someone pause. We now know that the tags for "Brazil"
>http://www.flickr.com/photos/smithsonian/tags/brazil/ are *not* all the
>photos of Brazil, even within this small 15 photo collection. We see
>only two when there should be at least nine. Who knows how many photos
>of Brazil there are within the rest of the collection? If this is so
>undeniably true for this single tag, what are you really looking at for
>the each of the rest of the tags? The first photo has the tags "girls"
>and "children" but this photo has nothing
>http://www.flickr.com/photos/smithsonian/6839255684/in/set-721576292276351
>10/.
>When you click on the tag "children" in the huge tag cloud, you will
>*not* retrieve this photo. This shows how people assume a lot when they
>click on a tag. (Of course, this applies equally to all headings in a
>library catalog)
>
>Or perhaps people don't assume. Or maybe they don't care. Nevertheless,
>they should be aware of something that seems so vital, and yet so easily
>hidden, as are the 7 photos from this collection when someone clicks on
>the Brazil tag. How is somebody supposed to know?
>
>My experience shows people don't understand any of this and are actually
>embarrassed when you demonstrate it to them. They try to explain it away
>and then often reply they don't care, but I believe that is a
>face-saving maneuver. Are we supposed to believe that they really and
>truly don't care what they get from a search?! In my opinion, it is much
>more the case that people do not want it to be true and prefer to ignore
>it.
>
>The comments to the photos are indeed very interesting. Some have
>substantive information, e.g. in
>http://www.flickr.com/photos/smithsonian/6985376261/in/set-721576292276351
>10/,
>there is a discussion about the use of hats in field photographs (led by
>the Smithsonian), and in this photo of a steamboat in Alaska,
>http://www.flickr.com/photos/smithsonian/6985376089/in/set-721576292276351
>10/
>someone has linked into Wikipedia and Project Gutenberg to give
>additional information about this particular steamboat.
>
>All in all, an impressive project by the Smithsonian, but in my opinion,
>not so much for the reasons Clay Shirkey gives. The Smithsonian staff
>appear to have taken this as an opportunity for genuine outreach and I
>am sure they have created some very good feelings about the Institution.
>Kudos to them! It must have been a lot of work but rewarding as well.
>
>After this short analysis however, the huge tag cloud seems to hide as
>much as it reveals. It shows the pitfalls of relying on an enthusiastic
>public who are completely untrained and where the idea of providing
>"consistent, reliable retrieval" is completely alien. Clay Shirkey
>discusses the tags "cyanotype", "moustache" and "steampunk". He is
>obviously assuming something when he clicks on one of these tags. What
>does he think he is seeing when he clicks on "moustache", I wonder? Does
>he realize he is getting only a completely unknown and random
>percentage, just as we can demonstrate with "Brazil"? Does he care?
>
>In spite of all of this, I agree with the overall tenor of his talk, and
>found it highly entertaining as well as educational. I suggest it to all.
>
>--
>*James Weinheimer* weinheimer.jim.l_at_gmail.com
>*First Thus* http://catalogingmatters.blogspot.com/
>*Cooperative Cataloging Rules*
>http://sites.google.com/site/opencatalogingrules/
>*Cataloging Matters Podcasts*
>http://blog.jweinheimer.net/pweb/cataloging-matters-podcasts.html
>
Received on Tue Nov 06 2012 - 08:18:50 EST