{"id":64169,"date":"2014-03-12T08:00:45","date_gmt":"2014-03-12T13:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=64169"},"modified":"2014-03-11T18:47:29","modified_gmt":"2014-03-11T23:47:29","slug":"crowdsourcing-in-digital-libraries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=64169","title":{"rendered":"Crowdsourcing in digital libraries"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Tracy Wasserman, Head Editor,\u00a0INALJ Florida<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Crowdsourcing in digital libraries<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"Tracy<\/a>Libraries of all kinds hold countless items of significant historical value that most people never see. That\u00a0is, never would see, until now, with the advent of digital libraries. Efforts to bring hidden treasures to\u00a0light and make them readily accessible online have resulted in hundreds of digitized library collections\u00a0around the world. And guess what? You, yes YOU, can help build these collections by joining online\u00a0communities engaged in transcribing and tagging the digital items in them. You could engage your\u00a0interest and enthusiasm for a unique collection, and learn something, learn a lot actually, about history.\u00a0Tasks traditionally performed by an employee or contractor are outsourced to group of people or\u00a0community in the form of an open call, to achieve a specific goal. It\u2019s called \u201ccrowdsourcing,\u201d and here\u00a0are examples of some of the most popular crowdsourcing achievements in digital libraries:<\/p>\n

New York Public Library: What\u2019s on the Menu?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The New York Public Library\u2019s What\u2019s on the Menu<\/a>? transcription crowdsourcing project was created\u00a0by NYPL Labs, in conjunction with the ongoing digitization of the Miss Frank E. Buttolph American Menu\u00a0Collection<\/a>, housed in the Rare Book Division of the New York Public Library. This collection of 45,000\u00a0\u00a0restaurant menus<\/a>, was amassed largely by one women (the indomitable Miss Frank Buttolph, librarian\u00a0archivist extraordinare<\/a>). Miss Buttolph donated her collection in 1899 to the NYPL, so that future\u00a0generations would know what their ancestors ate, with the vision before her of students of history\u00a0\u201cwho would say \u2018thank you\u2019 to my name and memory<\/a>.\u201d Well, Thank You, Miss Buttolph! The NYPL Labs\u00a0crowdsourcing project aims to transcribe the dishes on all these menus as they are digitized and become\u00a0available online, making them searchable dish-by-dish so we will indeed know what are ancestors were\u00a0eating a century ago. Miss Buttolph would be proud.<\/p>\n

Smithsonian<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Smithsonian knows how to hone in on a good thing with style and flare: its Transcription Center<\/a>\u00a0currently hosts 31 transcription projects, from the field notes of botanical collections<\/a> to the papers\u00a0of the WWII Monuments Men<\/a>, involving collections from eight Smithsonian museums, archives and\u00a0libraries. In a call to \u201cresearchers, educators, citizen scientists and history buffs,\u201d the Smithsonian calls\u00a0us to arms, to \u201cdiscover secrets hidden deep inside our collections that illuminate our history and our\u00a0world.\u201d So what are we waiting for? Let\u2019s pick our project<\/a>, and start today! Think of the worlds we will\u00a0discover!<\/p>\n

Galaxy Zoo<\/strong><\/p>\n

Speaking of discovering worlds, how would you like to go out of this world and classify galaxies? Yep,\u00a0you read that right. Galaxy Zoo<\/a> is a scientific research crowdsourcing project begun by researchers at\u00a0various prestigious international universities, who quickly realized the task of classifying images from\u00a0a million discovered galaxies would be rather mind-numbing for the lot of them on their own. So they\u00a0turned to us citizen scientists. We get the opportunity to directly contribute to scientific research,\u00a0while viewing the \u201cbeautiful and varied galaxies that inhabit our universe<\/a>.\u201d Within 24 hours of its\u00a0launch in July of 2007, Galaxy Zoo was receiving 700,000 classifications an hour, and within a year, more\u00a0than 50 million classifications had been received, contributed by more than 150,000 people. (http:\/\/www.galaxyzoo.org\/#\/story<\/a>). Let\u2019s get on the bandwagon, shall we?<\/p>\n

Family Search\u2019s Obituary Digitization Project<\/strong><\/p>\n

From out of this world to worlds that have passed, how about indexing obituaries<\/a> of our collective\u00a0ancestors? Run by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints through its Family History Center\u00a0libraries, Family Search is calling on volunteers to index its collection of millions of obituaries as they\u00a0become digitized, to create a \u201ctreasure trove\u201d of unique stories valuable to online family history\u00a0research. But you can discover and index much more than obituaries! Family Search runs over 100\u00a0crowdsourcing indexing projects<\/a> around the world, searchable by name or language. Want to index\u00a0Catholic church records in Saskatchewan, Canada from 1846 through 1934, marriages in West Cape,\u00a0South Africa from 1860 to 1962, or civil registrars of birth in Manila, Philippines from 1901 to 1979?\u00a0Choose your interest and bring our ancestors to life!<\/p>\n

So show us what you can do. The above examples are just a few of the opportunities to expand your\u00a0horizons, and bring a digital library to life for all the world to enjoy. Go ahead – sign up to unlock the\u00a0world\u2019s mysteries while sitting on your couch. You may be amazed at what you discover.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Tracy Wasserman, Head Editor,\u00a0INALJ Florida Crowdsourcing in digital libraries Libraries of all kinds hold countless items of significant historical value that most people never see. That\u00a0is, never would see, until now, with the advent of digital libraries. Efforts to bring hidden treasures to\u00a0light and make them readily accessible online have resulted in hundreds of…<\/p>\n

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