On 11/6/12 8:22 AM, Jonathan Rochkind wrote:
> A few years ago adding tagging to the catalog was the big thing,
> several people did it. They found that users simply did not add tags
> in any significant number, people seemed uninterested in tagging in
> the catalog.
Not terribly surprising. What sites like Flickr and LibraryThing have in
common is that users are tagging THEIR OWN STUFF, not somebody else's.
That's a huge difference in motivation. That's also why many tags have a
personal POV - "my brother".
kc
>
> I agree it would be awfully useful to have crowd-sourced enhanced
> access points (ie, tagging), but it's a moot point if the crowd isn't
> going participate.
>
> On 11/6/2012 8:17 AM, Joseph Montibello wrote:
>> 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
>>>
>>
>>
--
Karen Coyle
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet
Received on Tue Nov 06 2012 - 12:49:23 EST