Possibilities for Social Tagging in a VR Collection

1. Possibilities for Social Tagging in a VR Collection Jenn Riley Metadata Librarian Indiana University Digital Library Program

2. What are we doing at IU? • Nothing in production yet but much interest • DIDO VR collection • 2006 experimentation with FA faculty contributing subject terms • Anticipated (but unscheduled) major overhaul to system will include methods for user participation • Variations digital audio plans • Structured metadata for some fields • Synchronizing scores and audio • But how do we decide what to implement? Power to the People: ARLIS 2007

3. Purposes of tags • Golder & Huberman classification based on study of del.icio.us tags • Identifying what (or who) it is about (overwhelmingly most frequent usage) • Identifying what it is • Identifying who owns it • Refining categories • Identifying qualities or characteristics • Self reference • Task organizing Power to the People: ARLIS 2007

4. Identification Structured metadata Factual information (dates, etc.) Subjective information (subjects, etc.) Ratings, reviews, commentary, etc. Relationships Secondary sources Multiple versions Alignment Beyond “tags” Power to the People: ARLIS 2007

5. Decisions to make for a tagging implementation • Who • What • Incentive • Control Power to the People: ARLIS 2007

6. Who • Libraries have been expanding “who” creates records • Copy cataloging • “De-professionalization” of cataloging • Vendor records • VR world also sees need for expansion • UCAI • Efforts to get data from museums • Our users often know a great deal more about these resources than we do Power to the People: ARLIS 2007

7. Options for “who” • Anybody • Those who register • .edu addresses • IU community • Specific roles within IU community • Specific designated authorized users Power to the People: ARLIS 2007

8. What • Tagging and user-contributed metadata isn’t necessarily unstructured • del.icio.us tag descriptions • Flickr machine tags • Wikipedia:Persondata • Systems could open up user contributions in some areas but not others Power to the People: ARLIS 2007

9. Unstructured tagging only, separate from cataloger-created metadata Contribute to new areas of the system reserved for non-descriptive uses of tags Fix errors Some metadata elements Subjective data Factual data “Extra” data elements Commentary Any metadata element Options for “what” Power to the People: ARLIS 2007

10. Incentive • Tagging is work • Users must have a reason to perform that work • Asking users to participate in our existing metadata creation workflows is unlikely to be successful; we need to move into their space • Users more likely to tag resources they already have an interest in Power to the People: ARLIS 2007

11. Options for incentive • Money • Manage personal resources • Assistance with needed task • Recognition • Contribution to the greater good • Fun Power to the People: ARLIS 2007

12. Control • A common assertion is that library-created metadata is consistent and error-free. This is a fallacy. • Is it really more important for metadata creators to know about structural rules than about the content itself? • Must re-examine where we need structural control of metadata • The system can play a much larger role in enforcing what control we do need Power to the People: ARLIS 2007

13. Options for control • Allow all user contributions to appear immediately • No formal editorial mechanisms • Editors oversee contributions after the fact • Streamlined approval mechanism • Some elements less control, some more • User contributions as suggestions to be independently verified by metadata experts Power to the People: ARLIS 2007

14. System contributions to controlled data • Pick lists • Spell check • Behind-the-scenes authority files • Normalization algorithms • Creative interface design • … Power to the People: ARLIS 2007

15. Everything in moderation • Use the general idea, not necessarily all the details • Opening up metadata creation to users does not necessarily mean a complete loss of control • No single approach will be enough on its own • Always remember what we’re using this metadata for Power to the People: ARLIS 2007

16. Moving forward (1) • Libraries can’t continue to rely exclusively on in-house cataloging • We can achieve our overall goals while allowing new mechanisms along the way • Users are one additional source of metadata we must tap • We must match metadata needs to the tasks users are best equipped to perform Power to the People: ARLIS 2007

17. Moving forward (2) • Each system may make different choices regarding where user-contributed metadata makes sense • Good interfaces for metadata collection will be key • We must use the best ideas for user participation, and adapt them for the library environment Power to the People: ARLIS 2007

18. For more information • jenlrile@indiana.edu • These presentation slides:<http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/~jenlrile/presentations/arlis2007/arlis.ppt> • Golder, Scott A. & Bernardo A. Huberman, “The Structure of Collaborative Tagging Systems,” Journal of Information Science32 (2), 2006, 198–208. Power to the People: ARLIS 2007