The Utopian Library

CIL2008: User-Generated Content

Posted on April 8th, 2008 by ruth

Roy Tennant, Senior Program Officer, OCLC

Focus of session: user generated content on library-managed sites

Definitions:

On the agenda:

Why user-generated content?

More content is better
- if user content is appropriate to the library’s mission, then use it!
More access is better
- more people can find more information using descriptive tags (in addition to controlled vocabulary)
Can help provide personalized service
Can foster interaction and community
- user-generated content can stimulate ongoing converation between users and the library
- “we don’t know everything”¹
More data trumps better algorithms
- increased amounts of data are more useful than any tweaks to an algorithm

Contributions of content

Kete Project, New Zealand
- a public repository for anyone to contribute content: pictures, movies, audio, videos, web links, discussion, documents

Descriptive contributions

Halton Hills Public Library
- public invited to help identify crew members in a photo of the ship, Dimmie John
- invites contribution of regional knowledge that might otherwise remain unknown
- lowers the barrier to participation
Library of Congress photos on Flickr
- two collections received many tags and comments from visitors
- LC site includes link to Flickr site
- statistics:
  - 5.4 million views within one month
  - 10,000+ unique tags (out of 55,000 total)
  - 11,000+ “contacts” acquired… an ongoing audience!
  - 3,500+ comments by more than 1,400 users
- outomes for LC:
  - higher profile of its collections
  - community engagement
  - contributions of corrections and additions to metadata
  - discussions and elicited personal histories that relate to the photos
  - increased visibility for the LC blog
Boston Public Library photos on Flickr
- postcard collection
- not as much publicity as LC, but puts content out there that might not ordinarily be seen
Exploiting the knowledge of the masses
- greater visibility increases the likelihood of correcting mistakes and getting accurate info
- library staff are often distant from localized knowledge of items in their collections
- the Web can provide a feedback loop
  - libraries post things on the Web that create ways for users to contribute back
  - helps enrich the collections and content

Contributions to discovery

Third Party Providers

Springshare LibGuides, LibMarks
LibraryThing for Libraries
- enriches the OPAC with LibraryThing data
- no need to move to a NextGen catalog
- basically, you can “put the pig in a dress”²
ChiliFresh
- a review engine for libraries
- handles back-end management of library reviews

Thoughts and considerations

Our idea of content might not be the same as that of our contributors
User-generated content is going to be messy and that’s (mostly) ok. The mess will fall to the bottom.
There are ways to increase effectiveness through intelligent usage
Issues to consider
- what are the library’s goals?
- is the library set up appropriately to meet those goals?
- are there strategies libraries can use to maximize the benfits (e.g., statistical evaluation of tags)
- how will the library distinguish between user- and library-generated content?
- will submissions require vetting or moderation and can the library’s infrastructure support that?
- is the potential impact worth the investment?
Where to from here?
- user engagement is a GOOD THING! gets people to think about their libraries and lets them know that libraries want their input
- libraries need to get up to speed on how to foster engagement in our systems; we’re locked so tight that users don’t know how to get in
- libraries need to get savvy about how best to use things like tags most effectively

User-contributed content and description offers libraries great potential for content and service enhancement.