2. FORUMS
WORK
Christian van der Ven Offene Archive Spyer, Germany 22 November 2012
3. About Me
Christian van der Ven
Coördinator Reference and Digital Services
Brabant Historical Information Center
’s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands
Digital Archivist / Blogger
Archives 2.0 / Social Media
@cvanderven
4. Topics
Forums work!
Goals BHIC
Overview
Strategy
Results
The good and the bad
Questions and discussion
Bonus: Chat works! (only when there’s time left)
5. Forums work!
In between all new Web 2.0 tools and Social Media,
forums have been underestimated and neglected
But forums have been there since the start of the
Internet... and there’s a good reason for that:
Forums work!
Cheap for archives, easy for users
All about content, users and interaction
Customizable and expandable
Largest and most active online communities use a
forum as platform
6. Goals BHIC
Build user communities for local history, genealogy
and historical research in North-Brabant
Crowdsource for new and additional information
related to local history, and archives and collections
Create an alternative for traditional reference, a
platform where researchers can help each other
13. Overview
Forums for
Local History Pages (2006)
Genealogy & Historical Research (2007)
Water Map (2009)
All forums consist of new posts and comments
Local History Pages and Water Map forums also
include comments on stories and photos on the
website
14. Overview
Forum management
Started in 2008
Became a scheduled task in 2009
Monitored & managed daily by Reference Archivists
Supported by topic specialists
Management via rss feeds in Google Reader
16. Strategy
Monitor constantly
Initially: stimulate use by replying on each post
No question? Still reply!
Challenge patrons for new comments and information
Stimulate connections between patrons
Explore new frontiers services, without charge (at first)
Don’t pull back faster than the community advances
Stimulate use by referring to forums (via e-mail, chat)
Be nice to ‘regulars’ (extra service, Christmas Cards,
special activity day for users etc.)
18. 10000
8964
8781
9000
8000
7000
6000 5567 5950
5000
4000
3000
2000 2120
2049
1000
714 618
380 347
0
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Until October
New Posts Local History/Water New Posts Genealogy/Historical Research
Comments Local History/Water Comments Genealogy/Historical Research
19. New Posts and Comments Genealogy/
Historical Research
7000
6000
5000
4000
3000
2000
1000
0
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Until October
New Posts Comments
20. Share of Posts Genealogy/
Historical Research
7000
6000
5000
4000
3000
2000
1000
0
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Until October
BHIC Users
Graph shows posting messages, not monitoring them
21. Avarage Amount of Comments
15,0
10,0
5,0
0,0
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Until October
Local History Water Genealogy/Historical Research Total
22. Community in 2011
Graph based on 5688 posts by 1283 people who left their e-mail address
That’s 65% of the total amount of posts for 2011
800
700
707 users posted 1 message
600
500
400
Users
300
1 user posted 451 messages
200 (and she is from
New Zealand)
100
0
1
3
5
7
9
13
15
19
37
43
45
62
11
17
21
23
25
30
39
50
71
86
7
1
24
45
Posts
23. The good and the bad
Patrons (and archivists) meet, share and help
Loss of monopoly and natural authority
Higher flow rate than traditional reference
Mix with other service channels
Online contact becomes more social and personal
Public compliments... and complaints
Change of work space and time
Rise of community and new type of volunteers
Bycatch in the form of stories, photos, indexes etc.
24. The good...
“I find it to be a bit of a sport to try and find info
on the internet, or in the case of the digital
archives, from databases”
Dorethé, 29 januari 2009 (and she already posted 700 messages in 2012!)
27. Goals BHIC
To prevent people from clicking away from our
website, by offering a direct, easy accessible help
service via chat from each webpage
The digital archivist as moderator, oracle, support
and anchor, as the digital face of the website
29. Subjects
History
Genealogy
Research
General
Source data: 2009/2010
30. Handling
Answered
Followed by e-mail
Invited to study room
Invited to e-mail
Internally redirected
Referred
Not answered
Other
Source data: 2009/2010
31. Results
About 1.300 chats per year
First staffed reference desk in a virtual research room
Very, very, very happy patrons