. Recently the California Historical Society, in collaboration with the
Geography Dept. at U.C. Berkeley had a project of gathering information on
WPA  and other New Deal built structures and features that are still extant
in California.  It wasn't' a social media site, but web based. It was set up
for people to enter information on line, and send photos.  They then
reviewed the information that was sent before posting it on the site
permanently.  A little different than what you want to do, but you might get
some ideas if you look at the site:  www.livingnewdeal.berkeley.edu
<http://www.livingnewdeal.berkeley.edu/> 

 

Lucy Sperlin

Butte County Historical Society

Oroville, Calif.

 

 

  _____  

From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of David Lewias
Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2011 9:18 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [MUSEUM-L] Collection Indexing via Social Media?

 

Dan -- 
I love it when someone has the same crazy-hair-brain ideas as I do!

I work as curator of a firefighting museum, and among my other tasks I am
the official historian/photographer for our local fire department.  We've
got 1000s of contemporary photos or people and equipment at fires,
retirement parties, and various training events.  My biggest problem is that
the photos are sorted into folders by date and event, but none of the people
have been identified. 

I'm proposing we upload these photos (en-mass) to a photo sharing site such
as Flickr, and then invite our local firefighters to "tag themselves."
Seems like a win-win.....  The firefighters/public would get free accesses
to our collection, and we'd get it indexed.  

Of course there are a couple of unresolved issues. 
One -- we're wrestling with how much access do we give.   Do we upload
full-sized photos?  Do we allow for downloading?   Do we give the public
access or only firefighters?  Do we make this a revenue stream and "sell"
prints/copies/downloads (right now they are freely provided informally on a
case-by-case basis).   

The Second hurdle -- the technological questions.   While "tagging" is easy
in Flickr or some other such consumer friendly website, how do we ensure
quality control (IE: how do we make sure folks are tagged with their full
name, "John Doe" - as oppose to "Johhny" or "James" or a person's nickname
"'Mr Carson' Doe".   The second unresolved problem is how do we get the
tagged information back off the internet and into our collections database.
Flickr doesn't make it easy to download the meta-data (tags).  And if we've
uploaded anything other than the full-sized photos then the downloaded
copies won't be what we want for our primary-source files.....  

You seem to have (or envision) a custom designed  "web-portal" which might
eliminate some of these technical questions -- have you actually talked with
a web-geek to see if what you're proposing is feasible? 

I'm eager to hear any other comments and replies.  

 

- David - 
David Lewis, Curator
Aurora Regional Fire Museum
www.AuroraRegionalFireMuseum.org

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Bartlett <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Tue, Feb 15, 2011 8:36 am
Subject: [MUSEUM-L] Collection Indexing via Social Media?

Hello All:

 

The Logan museum has a collection of over 300 objects, extensive field notes
(hundreds of pages in 5 very thick binders) and (eventually we hope) up to
3000 images. These are the life's work of an avocational anthropologist. She
collected textiles, mostly from across Oaxaca, between 1949 and the
mid-1990s. We have been discussing how to process this collection into a
unified, indexed whole. All of the collection objects have been photographed
and each page of the notebooks has been scanned. We would like to create an
index linking specific pages in the notebooks to specific objects in the
collection. It would allow researchers to search for a village name (for
example) and get back results relating that village to specific objects and
notebook pages. The index would eventually be launched on line using our
existing collections management software.

 

One idea is to create a web portal and use the power of social networking to
allow people interested in Oaxacan textiles do the indexing for us. We would
post the materials on line, create a portal and forms for linking key words
and specific objects to notebook pages, and manage the online indexing by
engaging with affinity groups and interested individuals in an environment
that allows participants and museum staff to work together in a social and
collaborative online environment.

 

My question is whether anyone knows of similar indexing projects done either
in-person and in-house, or by way of social networks on line. In either case
what were the strengths and weaknesses of the approach? What advice on
setting up the systems can you give? Are we crazy to even consider this?
And thanks to Nina Simon for the inspiration (or insanity, whichever it is).


Dan
-- 
Dan Bartlett
Curator of Exhibits and Education
Instructor of Museum Studies
Logan Museum of Anthropology
Beloit College
========================================================= Important
Subscriber Information: 

The Museum-L FAQ file is located at
http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed
information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message
to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help"
(without the quotes). 

If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to
[log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff
Museum-L" (without the quotes). 

========================================================= Important
Subscriber Information: 

The Museum-L FAQ file is located at
http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed
information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message
to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help"
(without the quotes). 

If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to
[log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff
Museum-L" (without the quotes). 

  _____  

No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 10.0.1204 / Virus Database: 1435/3445 - Release Date: 02/15/11


=========================================================
Important Subscriber Information:

The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).

If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).