Riley, Jenn. "Possibilities for Social Tagging in a VR Collection." Power to the People: Art Libraries Society of North America Annual Conference, April 28, 2007

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?
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Nothing in production yet but much interest
DIDO VR collection
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Variations digital audio plans
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2006 experimentation with FA faculty contributing
subject terms
Anticipated (but unscheduled) major overhaul to system
will include methods for user participation
Structured metadata for some fields
Synchronizing scores and audio
But how do we decide what to implement?
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3. Purposes of tags
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Golder & Huberman classification based on
study of del.icio.us tags
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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
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4. Beyond “tags”
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Identification
Structured metadata
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Factual information
(dates, etc.)
Subjective
information
(subjects, etc.)
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Ratings, reviews,
commentary, etc.
Relationships
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Secondary sources
Multiple versions
Alignment
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5. Decisions to make for a tagging
implementation
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Who
What
Incentive
Control
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6. Who
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Libraries have been expanding “who” creates
records
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VR world also sees need for expansion
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Copy cataloging
“De-professionalization” of cataloging
Vendor records
UCAI
Efforts to get data from museums
Our users often know a great deal more about these
resources than we do
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7. Options for “who”
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Anybody
Those who register
.edu addresses
IU community
Specific roles within IU community
Specific designated authorized users
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8. What
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Tagging isn’t necessarily unstructured
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del.icio.us tag descriptions
Flickr machine tags
Systems could open up user contributions in
some areas but not others
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9. Options for “what”
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Unstructured tagging only, separate from catalogercreated metadata
Add places in the system for the other uses tags are
put to
Some metadata elements
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Subjective data
Factual data
“Extra” data elements
Commentary
Any metadata element
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10. Incentive
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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
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11. Options for incentive
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Money
Manage personal resources
Assistance with needed task
Recognition
Contribution to the greater good
Fun
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12. Control
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A common assumption 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
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13. Options for control
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Allow all user contributions to appear
immediately
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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
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14. System contributions to controlled data
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Pick lists
Spell check
Behind-the-scenes authority files
Normalization algorithms
Creative interface design
…
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15. Everything in moderation
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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
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16. Moving forward (1)
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Libraries can’t continue to rely exclusively on inhouse 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
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17. Moving forward (2)
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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
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18. For more information
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jenlrile@indiana.edu
These presentation slides:
<http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/~jenlrile/presentations/arlis2007/arlis.ppt>
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Golder, Scott A. & Bernardo A. Huberman,
“The Structure of Collaborative Tagging
Systems,” Journal of Information
Science 32 (2), 2006, 198–208.
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