INTEGRATING FOLKSONOMIES INTO

CULTURAL HERITAGE DIGITAL

COLLECTIONS: THE CHALLENGIES

AND OPPORTUNITIES OF WEB 2.0

Daniel Gelaw Alemneh

University of North Texas, and

Dr. Samantha Kelly Hastings

University of South Carolina

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Background .

Document Document

Representation Query Information

Need

Match

(Bates, 1989).

ICKM 2008

Currently, the information retrieval support is limited.

Do you recognize these icons?

ICKM 2008 3

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Background…

“The new Web is a very different thing. It is a tool for

bringing together the small contributions of millions of

people and making them matter.”

“…It’s a story about community and collaboration on

a scale never seen before. It is about cosmic

compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-

channel people’s network YouTube and the online

metropolis MySpace. It’s about the many wresting power

from the few and helping one another for nothing and how

that will not only change the world, but also change

the way the world changes...”

OCLC’s report: Sharing, privacy and Trust in our Networked World, Oct. 2007:

. . Total Sites Across All Domains Aug. 1995 – Sept. 2008

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Trends

Huge multimedia digital

libraries instead of documents

Complex retrieval systems instead of matching

queries and document representations

Visualization of the information space instead of

a ranked list of search results

Human information behavior instead of

information need

ICKM 2008

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Trends…

User as creator, annotator, indexer,

searcher, and eventual user of his/her

content instead of authors and

professional indexers

User’s language and vocabulary instead of controlled

vocabulary

Tags and folksonomies instead of subject headings,

taxonomies and classification system

ICKM 2008

Folksonomy

Folksonomy is a user-generated system that allows users to tag their favorite digital resources with their chosen natural-language words or phrases.

Thomas Vander Wal is credited with first coining of the term in 2005, when he mashed up the words “taxonomy” and “folk”

“result of personal free tagging of information and objects (anything with a URL) for one's own retrieval” 8

ICKM 2008

Why create tags?

To organize information

To support search

To find them again later

To discover website and share them with others

To organize a large collection into categories in tune with the user’s own idiosyncratic mental model

To get exposure and traffic

To take advantage of functionality

As a way of voicing their opinions

To play a game…

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ICKM 2008

User-Based Tagging

del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site. Instead of saving a Webpage link in your “Favorites” (IE) or

“Bookmarks” (Firefox) folder, you save it to your del.icio.us

page.)

43Things is like a giant, global to-do list. You can add all of those things that you have been meaning

to do,

Flickr is a digital image storage/management site.

It is a place for you to organize all of your photos into

albums, tag them with descriptive keywords, and view

others’ images

Technorati allows you to perform searches on

blog content.

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.

(Vander Wal, 2005)

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Advantages

Folksonomies are:

Inclusive, democratic and self-moderating

Current

Lightweight

Predisposed to discovering unknown/unexpected

resources

Folksonomies engender community

Folksonomies offer a low cost alternative

Folksonomies offer usability

expression of the direct information needs and

desires of the user

offer insight into user behavior 12

ICKM 2008

Weaknesses

There has been considerable debate

concerning folksnomies flaws:

Folksonomies have no synonym control.

Folksonomies have a lack of precision.

Folksonomies lack hierarchy.

Folksonomies have a lack of recall.

Folksonomies are susceptible to malicious

tag

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ICKM 2008

Folksonomies in Cultural Heritage

Institutions

Many institutions are using or exploring social

software to supplement their existing systems:

PennTags, The University of Pennsylvania

library tagging system allows users to bookmark and tag websites as well as library

cataloging records.

MBooks Collection Builder, University of

Michigan’s interface. allows users to create their own collections and view public

collections created by others.

Enhancements planned to include MTagger 14

Folksonomies in …

Bibliocommons, a social discovery system

for libraries transforming online library catalogues from searchable

inventory systems into engaging social discovery

environments.

CiteULike, a social bookmarking site for

academic citations

Allows user to use tags to store, organize, and share the

scholarly papers they are reading.

allows users to export their libraries to BibTex or Endnote

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ICKM 2008

Folksonomies in …

Conntoea, references management tool

Allows users to find, save, customize, export or

import their references

BibSonomy , a system for sharing

bookmarks and lists of literature.

allows users to import from delicious their

libraries to BibTex or Endnote

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ICKM 2008

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Challenges and Opportunities

Digital Rights Management

“We dream of a world with free access to content. In the

meantime, there’s DRM.”

Metadata Driven access

Example

Personal Digital Assistant

Synonyms

Handheld Computer

"Alternate" Spellings

Persenal Digitel Asistent

Abbreviations / Acronyms

PDA

Broader Terms

Wireless, Computers

Narrower Terms

PalmPilot, PocketPC

Related Terms

WindowsCE, Cell Phones

ICKM 2008

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Challenges

Nature of information creation, organization, retrieval, use, and preservation is becoming more complex Aspects of data stewardship throughout the data lifecycle.

Changing users’ roles Everyone is a data provider , a search provider , and a

metadata harvester

There is no single model that explains the behavior of users who create, index, search, & use their own content

Free & uncontrolled users’ language and vocabulary Users may lack domain knowledge and/or knowledge

about system

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Opportunities Users are willing to provide descriptions of their own and

others’ contents

“Every user his/her overview of the document collection” (Abebe’s version of Ranganathan’s 2nd law )

Rich data to study their tagging behavior

Design of browsing interfaces could be informed by

research on social tags

Designers of indexing tools & systems have a real

opportunity to implement user-centered indexing

Browsing facilitates searching by users with a vague idea

about their need

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Emerging concepts & agendas

Next generation catalogs

RDA; FRBR; cataloging in hybrid & digital libraries; changes

in basic cataloging work and catalogers' responsibilities;

emerging perceptions of cataloging quality; how end users'

expectations and behaviors affect cataloging norms;

metadata records and elements in different contexts; etc.

Repositories are being deployed in a variety of

settings and across a range of scales (subject,

national, regional, institutional, project, lab,

personal).

The technical, managerial, practical and theoretical issues

that arise from diverse applications of repositories in the

increasingly pervasive information environment.

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Implications

A number of professional

groups are evaluating Web 2.0 tools and assess

impacts and metrics relating to using the Web as a

library‘s core service space.

The theme of the IS related conferences, such as ASIS&T try to address the entire phenomenon associated with Web 2.0:

-When users become active producers and contributors in

the information sphere, what are the implications for LIS?

-How are social computing and Web 2.0 trends affecting the

work of information professionals?

-What current research and applications are shaping future

directions? …

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Implications…

A growing number of non LIS Conferences and

Journals reflected upon the Web 2.0 issues:

What is the future of "top-down"‚ cultural institutions in the

age of "bottom-up"‚ access to knowledge and cultural

artifacts through Web 2:0 technologies?

Will such institutions respond to this threat to their cultural

hegemony by resistance or adaptation?

How can a cultural heritage institution appeal to an audience

which has unprecedented access to cultural resources?

How can institutions predicated on a cultural economy of

scarcity compete in an emerging state of cultural

abundance? ICKM 2008

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Some things are timeless

Ranganathan’s 1931 five laws of LS

“Application of Ranganathan's Laws to the

Web” (Noruzi’s 2004 versions):

1. Web resources are for use.

2. Every user his or her web resource.

3. Every web resource its user.

4. Save the time of the user.

5. The Web is a growing organism.

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Summary

The ability to tag onto an OPAC or other

1.0 technologies may not fix the

underlying issues of IR.

Let’s keep on tagging, anyway.

When social networking moves out of the

friend’s circle and into the wider

information sphere, the impact would

be…

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References & Web Sites Consulted -Rorissa, A. (2007) Presentation at ASIS&T 2007, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

-ASIS&T: http://www.asis.org/

-Bates, M. J. (1989). The design of browsing and berrypicking techniques for the

online search interface. Online Review, 13(5), 407-424.

-CiteULike: http://www.citeulike.org/ , -Connotea: www.connotea.org

-Cormode, G. and Krishnamurthy, B. (2008). Key differences between Web 1.0

and Web 2.0; First Monday, 13(6). Retrieved July 1st, 2008 from http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/2125/1972

-del.icio.us: http://del.icio.us/ , -Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/

-43Things: http://www.43things.com/

-Gruber, T. (2005). Ontology of Folksonomy: A Mash-up of Apples and Oranges.

Retrieved July 1st, 2008, from http://tomgruber.org/writing/ontology-of-

folksonomy.htm

-Netcraft (2008). June 2008 Web Server Survey. Retrieved July 1st, 2008 from

http://news.netcraft.com/archives/web_server_survey.html

-Noruzi, A. (2004). "Application of Ranganathan's Laws to the Web." Webology, 1(2),

Article 8. Retrieved July 1st, 2008 from http://www.webology.ir/2004/v1n2/a8.html

-OCLC (2007). Sharing, privacy and Trust in our Networked World. Retrieved

July 1st, 2008 from http://www.oclc.org/reports/pdfs/sharing.pdf

References… -Peterson, E. (2006, November). “Beneath the metadata: Some philosophical problems

with folksonomies” D-lib Magazine, 12(11). Retrieved August 1, 2008, from:

http://www.dlib.org/dlib/november06/peterson/11peterson.html

-Spiteri, L. F. (2007). “The structure and form of folksonomy tags: The road to the public

library catalog Information,” Technology & Libraries, 26, 13-25.

-TechSmith, Co. (2008). “UX 2.0: Any User, Any Time, Any Channel.” Retrieved Aug. 1,

2008, from: http://download.techsmith.com/morae/docs/UserExperience2_0.pdf

-Technorati: http://www.technorati.com/

-Tony Hammonds, et al. "Social bookmarking tools (I), a general review." D-Lib Magazine

11(4). Retrieved August 1, 2008, from : doi:10.1045/april2005-hammond.

-University of Pennsylvania, (2005). “What is PennTags?” Retrieved August 1, 2008,

from: http://tags.library.upenn.edu/help/what_is_penntags

-University of Michigan (2008) “MBooks Collection Builder” and “MTagger.” Retrieved

August 1, 2008, from: http://www.lib.umich.edu/mtagger/

-Vander W. T. (2004). “Folksonomy”. Retrieved August 1, 2008, from:

http://vanderwal.net/folksonomy.html.

-Vander W.T. (2007). Explaining and Showing Broad and Narrow Folksonomies.

Retrieved August 1, 2008, from

http://www.personalinfocloud.com/2005/02/explaining_and_.html

-Webology (2008). Call for papers. Retrieved August 1, 2008, from :

http://www.webology.ir/cfp.html 26

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Thank you!

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