Freedom, Openness and Datasets: An Australia Day View

Today, January 26th is Australia Day. This means everyone is having a day off work, and in this ‘free’ time we can reflect how lucky we are to live in our nation and celebrate this. The benefits and privileges of living in Australia are summed up by always having a sense of freedom and openness. This comes not just from the physical landscape, the big wide open red desert spaces and blue sky, but in the day to day experience of living, and the rights Australians have. 

I was very interested to read some new research last week which set out to rank countries on their level of ‘Freedom’ and give them a score out of ten. The research is published in the book ‘Towards a Worldwide Index of Human Freedom’, which was released on 8 January 2013 by the Fraser Institute. Chapter 3 by Ian Vásquez and Tanja Štumberger gives ‘An Index of Freedom in the World’. Freedom is looked at in four areas:  Security and Safety; Freedom of Movement; Freedom of Expression; and Relationship Freedoms. The authors say:

 “We have tried to capture the degree to which people are free to enjoy the major civil liberties—freedom of speech, religion, and association and assembly—in each country in our survey. In addition, we include indicators of crime and violence, freedom of movement, and legal discrimination against homosexuals. We also include six variables pertaining to women’s freedom that are found in various categories of the index”.

The categories in detail are:

I. Security and safety

A. Government’s threat to a person

1. Extrajudicial killings

2. Torture

3. Political imprisonment

4. Disappearances

B. Society’s threat to a person

1. Intensity of violent conflicts

2. Level of organized conflict (internal)

3. Female genital mutilation

4. Son preference

5. Homicide

6. Human trafficking

7. Sexual violence

8. Assault

9. Level of perceived criminality

C. Threat to private property

1. Theft

2. Burglary

3. Inheritance

D. Threat to foreigners

II. Movement

A. Forcibly displaced populations

B. Freedom of foreign movement

C. Freedom of domestic movement

D. Women’s freedom of movement

III. Expression

A. Press killings

B. Freedom of speech

C. Laws and regulations that influence media content

D. Political pressures and controls on media content

E. Dress code in public

IV. Relationship freedoms

A. Freedom of assembly and association

B. Parental authority

C. Government restrictions on religion

D. Social hostility toward religion

E. Male-to-male relationships

F. Female-to-female relationships

G. Age of consent for homosexual couples

H. Adoption by homosexuals

The country which has the best freedom in the world and comes top in the Freedom Index is New Zealand. Australia comes 4th and the UK 18^th out of 123. The table below shows the top countries. (Scores out of 10)

 

I feel lucky to have lived in three of the top ranked countries. Based on my own experience I think the rankings of New Zealand, Australia and UK is right.

The countries which lack freedom and are bottom are Zimbabwe 123rd; Burma/Myanmar 122^nd; Pakistan 121^st; Sri-Lanka 120^th; and Syria 119^th. We feel for their citizens who often feature in our TV news. The extract of bottom countries is below:

 

The report is fascinating and I suggest you read it. You might be wondering why I think this study has any relevance for librarians or archivists. Being a librarian I most commonly associate Freedom with ‘Freedom and Openness of Information’.  I was originally reading the study to see how Freedom of Information or Open Government had been scored and ranked. However this was not included in the study, perhaps because it wasn’t thought of it, or it was simply too hard.

It follows that if a country is very free then a lot more information will be generated both commercially and by the Government. This is likely to be in the public sphere at time of creation and then remain in the public sphere when it gets passed on/purchased/made accessible by National Archives, Libraries and Research Institutions. 

If information is not publicly accessible then countries with a high Freedom Index score have Freedom of Information (FOI) Acts. This enables members of the public to request to see information. USA was the first country to have a FOI in 1966. Australia and New Zealand followed in 1982, and the UK finally launched FOI in 2000.

Most of the top ranked countries in the Freedom Index are involved in a movement known as ‘Open Government’ which started in about 2009 and basically builds on the Freedom of Information Act principles. Open Government aims to make a concerted effort to release reports, research, statistics and data sets into the public domain and be transparent; to involve the citizens of the country in decision making based on the fact they would have equal access to the same information as policy decision makers; AND for citizens to help with information creation, collation, dissemination and interpretation.

In June 2009 the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that Tim Berners-Lee (inventor of the Internet) would work with the UK Government to help make data more open and accessible on the Web in the UK, building on the work of the Power of Information Task Force.

On his first day in Office in January 2009 Barack Obama issued a Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government, instructing the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to issue an Open Government Directive, which would direct agencies to take specific actions regarding transparency, participation, and collaboration.

In Australia in 2009 the Government 2.0 Taskforce recommended that Australia should have an Open Government. The Australian Declaration of Open Government was made in 2010.

At this time I had a particular interest in the Australian Declaration because it was relevant to me in my day to day work at the National Library of Australia. It said among other things:

“Collaboration with citizens is to be enabled and encouraged. Agencies are to reduce barriers to online engagement, undertake social networking, crowd sourcing and online collaboration projects and support online engagement by employees…”

In 2011 the New Zealand Government made a Declaration of OpenGovernment.

After these dramatic declarations by the USA, Australia and New Zealand President Obama took little time to try and influence the world. In September 2011 he formed the ‘Open Government Partnership’ (OGP) and 8 governments joined: Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Norway, Philippines, South Africa, United Kingdom, and United States (but not Australia or New Zealand).  To become a member of the OGP, participating countries must do three things:

·         embrace an agreed high-level Open Government Declaration

·         deliver a concrete action plan, developed with public consultation

·         commit to independent reporting on their progress going forward

At last check 60 countries have now joined with 47 having delivered action plans and 13 working on them. However Australia and New Zealand are not members.  Obviously it is much easier said than done to actually implement Open Government. Pia Waugh, Australian expert on Open Government has given many talks on Open Government and to read some more about the challenges and what it really means check out her 2011 blog post ‘OpenGovernment: What is it really?’

The UK is notably now amending its Freedom of Information Act in consultation with the public, to take into account the opening up of data sets.  More info. 

Perhaps the Freedom Index had trouble ranking Open Government, so how would you do it?

Interestingly last week Craig Thomler reported in a blog post that he had attempted to rank countries by comparing the number of open data sets they had released through their national government open data sites.  He has relied on the ‘open data’ provided on the USA Open Data site to do this and notes that the results are a bit dubious. Data.gov lists 41 countries as having open data websites, out of almost 200 countries.

Government Open Data sites include:

·         Data.gov (USA) http://www.data.gov/

·         Data.gov.uk (UK) http://data.gov.uk/data

·         Data NZ  http://data.govt.nz/

·         Data (Australia)  http://data.gov.au/

The ranking results of countries providing Open Data via Government Data Sites in January 2013 are:

1. US (378,529 data sets)

2. France (353,226)

3. Canada (273,052)

4. Denmark (23,361)

5. United Kingdom (8,957)

6. Singapore (7,754)

7. South Korea (6,460)

8. Netherlands (5,193)

9. New Zealand (2,265)

10. Estonia (1,655)

11. Australia (1,124)

Is this really right that Australia is 11^th? Perhaps not, because this is not the big picture.  It is wrong to assume that all data sets are created by Government (although of course a lot are).  Many more are created by researchers in academia and by commercial companies.  Geospatial and mapping data is a good example of this. For example if I was looking for Open Data Sets in Australia there are at least

8 portals I know of where I could look. Also many more individual sites that offer their own data sets. The portal sites listed below either publicly list or actually make available Australian data sets.

 

Australian Data Set Portals

Number of data sets included as at 26 January 2013

 

53,000:  National Library of Australia Trove Service, mostly from the University sector

31,000:  Research Data Australia, from the Academic and Research sector

1,124:    Data (Department of Finance), from Federal Government Agencies.

466:      Atlas of Living Australia, from Research Institutes

250:      Data.nsw.gov.au, from State Government Departments

167:      Data.vic www.data.vic.gov.au Victoria, from State Government Departments

 

78:        Data.qld.gov.au, from State Government Departments

72:      DataACT www.data.act.gov.au, from State Government Departments

This takes the total figure of Australian open data sets to between 50,000 - 94,000 depending on the duplication, if any, between these sites, and possibly moves us up to fourth position in the rankings.  Duplication… that makes me want to put my librarian hat on again.  Wouldn’t it be good if the Australian Government took on the bigger challenge and picture for data sets by utilising the knowledge and delivery services of the National Library and National Archives of Australia. they could develop an open data set portal that co-ordinated, listed, delivered and was searchable for ALL Australian data sets, rather than each sector (Government, Research Institutes, Commercial, Academic, Libraries, Archives) attempting to develop its own portal.  This would much better serve the citizens of Australia who want to find, access and use the data sets. At the end of the day the main point of the Open Government movement is about trying to better help, inform, engage and involve our citizens. Since both the National Library and National Archives of Australia are not only part of the Government, but also professional organisations that have a mandate to manage information then they have a key leadership role in Open Government and Open Data in particular.  It will be very interesting to see how this area develops over the next couple of years for them.

This evening the televised 5 minute 2013 Australia Day Address from the Governor-General talked about the importance of looking for answers to big questions, saying the internet is often our first stop. She spoke about significant research and how changes in technology and access to information can assist with ideas and innovation which often translates into economic growth. Everything she said applied to opening up data sets.

The take home messages for Australian and New Zealand Librarians and Archivists about the implications of being up there in the top of the Freedom Index and Open Government rankings are that it means:

·         Our digital collections will grow rapidly with this explosion of open and free digital data. 

·         We must further develop our search and discovery and delivery platforms to keep up with Google and ensure we maintain our relevance in digital society.

·         We need to take a lead in the Open Data movement – most especially by being involved in development of open data portals.

·         We must campaign for Digital Legal Deposit and make it a reality for Australia as it is in New Zealand, to help Libraries and Archives collect published Digital Material from the Commercial and Government sectors at point of creation.

·         Libraries and Archives are founded on freedom of information, equal access and openness; this is our tour de force.

Happy Australia Day!

Useful Extra Reading:

UK Government- Open Data White Paper: Unleashing the Potential, June 2012 http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/resource-library/open-data-white-paper-unleashing-potential

 

National Archives of Australia embraces crowdsourcing and releases ‘The Hive’.

 

The National Archives of Australia (NAA) has made a bold step into the cultural heritage crowdsourcing arena with ‘The Hive’ which was released two weeks ago. The brand makes a clever play on the word ‘Archive’ combined with the idea of a hive of working bees (the public).  The site encourages the public to transcribe archive records.

Early this year when David Fricker became Director General of the NAA he was quick to encourage staff to think innovatively, embrace change, and to harness opportunities such as crowdsourcing to improve access to our collections. He publicly spoke in favour of  crowdsourcing and a changing business model for archives at the International Council of Archives Congress in August:

“Another key development in expanding access is crowdsourcing. As many of us are now seeing, by allowing the public to contribute to the description of archival resources we are enhancing the ability of future generations to discover and learn from our archives. I also think it is a wonderful opportunity for the public to be more engaged with us as archives and to share in the work we do – preserving the memories of our nations. There is still some work to do here, in order to maximise the value of contributions and to maintain the integrity of our archives as authentic and accurate. However, I do not believe these problems are insurmountable, and indeed I believe these systems can to some extent be self-correcting.

This is a type of the co-design, citizen first activity… drawing on the interest and enthusiasm of the community to bring more of our archives into view – discoverable and retrievable…Access will be online and everywhere, improved by rich new data visualisation techniques and expanded descriptive contributions from an engaged citizenry”.

The Hive is the Archives pilot and experimentation into the potential of large scale transcription crowdsourcing to improve access to records.  Staff have looked closely at other crowdsourcing sites on offer and attempted to build on their knowledge and techniques, to provide a site that could be used as a large scale platform for a variety of transcription crowdsourcing projects.

At present the site offers just over 800 lists for the public to transcribe. Some of these are typed and some handwritten.  They are rated in difficulty as easy, medium or hard.  Part of the difficulty with this project is that the public need to have some understanding of how archives receive and describe their records to make sense of what they are being asked to do.  In simple terms archives receive vast amounts of records (referred to as consignments).  Each consignment comes with a list of the items in it.  However because of the large volume of records being received it is usual that only the consignment record is entered into the catalogue e.g. ‘100 boxes of plans and drawings’ from x government agency, rather than all the individual items on the consignment list being described in the catalogue.  The ideal scenario for users of the archives is that every item e.g. plan and drawing is described on the catalogue so that it can be found.  Without this a lot of guess work goes into finding relevant things, or alternatively personal visits are required to view the hard copy consignment lists.

 

The project that the archives is undertaking is to digitise consignment lists and then make them available for transcription by the public. Once transcribed they become searchable and the items within them can be found more easily.  Because so many of the lists are old and handwritten it is virtually impossible to get good OCR on them.  That’s where the public come in who can read them with the human eye. Also the time of the public is needed to speed up the access. Projections on the time it would take archives staff to describe the lists without public help currently stand at 210 years.  It is anticipated that a member of the public could with relative ease describe several hundred items per hour with the Hive tool, which would make a big difference, especially if there was a swarm.

The consignment lists in the pilot are those that have proved most popular with researchers and contain items in the ‘open period’, that is older than 30 years and now open to the public.  The top interest is lists of architectural drawings and historic buildings. This is closely followed by PNG patrol officer records, maritime incidents, personal records from the war office, prisoners of war, meteorology and cyclones, WW1 intelligence, and oil drilling on the Great Barrier Reef.

In the first 2 weeks 300 records have been transcribed of the 800. There is a definite preference for the lists rated hard (handwritten) and ones that involve names.

The site is well presented and gives volunteer transcribers things we know they want such as progress chart, recent activity, points scoring system, rewards, optional login using Open ID e.g. their Google ID, ability to search and choose items, or just take the next one served up, to pick easy or difficult items, to add a marker for where they got to if they are interrupted, and to favourite records.  The only slight drawback is the placing of the transcription window at the bottom of the screen rather than right or left, which often means it is hard to see the transcription window and the content you are transcribing at the same time. Also the OCR text in the transcription window and the cursor is not hooked directly to the text in the image so it is easy to get lost whilst transcribing sometimes.  This is largely because most of the lists are in tables, and the table rows and columns have not been retained in the OCR, so the OCR is somewhat muddled.  Further development of the site will largely depend on feedback given by the public users, and the ability of the archives to keep up a steady supply of new, interesting digitised consignment lists to the Hive.  The Archives is still considering how it may be able to integrate the public content back into its main catalogue RecordSearch, or integrate the Hive into RecordSearch. In the meantime the list content will remain searchable in the Hive.

There is obviously an expectation from the Archives that by making its content more discoverable it will lead to more access requests.  This is why at point of transcription there is a button which enables the user to request a copy of the item.  These requests are being met by digitising the item, and then uploading them into the main catalogue ‘RecordSearch’ with the full item description.

I congratulate the National Archives of Australia Access Team on the development of this exciting new site, which holds so much potential to improve access to records and engage with our citizens in new ways.

The screenshots below show the site in action:

 Easy level transcription- Archived drawings

Medium Level Transcription - ABC Drama Scripts

 



Difficult level transcription - Plans

 



Digital Motor Archive available free for the month of October in return for…...

It came to my notice last week that a publisher in the UK had digitised both the current and back issues of their magazine the ‘Commercial Motor’ which in its early life was a newspaper. In the cut throat world of publishing there are few publishers left that are still publishing the same title they were 100 years ago, and who also have a complete set of back copies.  If they fall into this bracket they are in the unique position of being able to either digitise the content themselves for their readers (usually at a loss); offer it to a library to digitise (at no cost); or sell it to a commercial e-vendor to package with another product for academia (and make a profit).  Unfortunately most choose the latter, which makes this type of content only really accessible to academics and students via academic libraries.  E-vendors normally charge high subscription rates to digitised magazines and newspapers and package them up with other content, making it only viable for large universities and national libraries to purchase, and therefore severely restricting readership to the content.

Not a lot of publishers are digitising their own content because generally speaking the cost of preparation, digitisation and OCR, and building a good website to deliver the content outweigh the amount of money they would ever recuperate from reader subscriptions. Normally a subscription to the current copy would be packaged up with old copies.  And that’s where the model fails, because often current readers have no interest in the old stuff.  People who do have an interest in the old stuff are generally a different group of people – historians, researchers etc.  The exception to this rule appears to be anything to do with hobbies such as knitting, cooking, railways, cars, and stamps. 

The Commercial Motor Archive http://archive.commercialmotor.com/ came to my notice because it is available for free for the month of October and I wondered why. It is a rich archive going from 1905 to the present day, covering a complete century and two world wars, well illustrated and with everything you ever wanted to know about commercial vehicles.   

The search and browse mechanism is very impressive and works well.  For example articles on pages have been zoned so you can search and find the article easily within a page.  It has many similarities to the hugely popular Australian Newspapers http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper.  The page displays alongside the OCR text to make it easier to read. You can browse covers, browse by date, and zoom in on pages.  Results can be filtered. Users can add comments and tags.  The quality of the OCR text and therefore search is very good.

It has one thing that was never implemented on Australian Newspapers (though often asked for by users) which is a little box on each page called ‘Report an error’ and this is the reason for its free access.  The site owner is hoping that as people use and read the pages in the archive they will report errors as they see them, and for this they get free access to the content.  The known errors that need to be identified are incomplete articles (where the zoning has gone wrong); OCR text error in headlines of articles; and OCR errors in text. However readers can only report them, not actually fix them.  The site states:

“the archive is beta because it isn’t perfect at the moment and there are a few glitches to be ironed out. Every article page has a 'Noticed an error?' button you can use to report a problem. Please don’t expect an immediate change to the error - we gather all the reports together and prioritise them, fixing the most pressing errors first.”

It sounds like they don’t know how many errors there are, how many people will report errors, and who and how the errors will be fixed.  Interesting.

Although the ‘report an error’ button was never implemented on Australian Newspapers (it was mainly needed to report upside down and duplicate pages) it had already been decided that a ‘super user’ would be the person to review these reports and take action.  In a world where some volunteer text correctors wanted to take on extra responsibility and have special roles like the hierarchy in the Wikipedia editors community this would have been a good thing for trusted volunteers to do.

The Commercial Motor Archive has impressed me because they are clearly striving for perfection, they understand that the fewer mistakes there are the better the search will be and they have taken a brave step by asking the public to help in return for free access.  This is indeed unusual for a commercial publisher, belonging more in the realms of libraries and archives and referred to as crowdsourcing……

 

Digital vandalism or just good fun? The Prado comes to Brisbane

Since I was attending the International Congress of Archives (ICA 2012) in Brisbane last week I had the opportunity to visit the Queensland Art Gallery which is a stone’s throw from the Brisbane Convention Centre.  As an added bonus all conference attendees got a discounted entry to the ‘Portrait of Spain’ Exhibition, which has 100 paintings from the Prado, Madrid on show.

I was surprised to see that visitors were encouraged to get their iphones out at the start of the tour. The primary reason was to take a photo of yourself against a backdrop of a Prado gallery, so that you could pretend to friends you had actually been to the Prado. The ticket collector obliged and took my photo:

 
As I approached the first painting a security guard then warned me that photos were not allowed, with or without flash, and I should put my iphone away.  At the next painting when I commented to another visitor how little description was provided beside paintings another security guard overheard and said ‘oh you can use your iphone’.  Now somewhat perplexed I asked again if I could take a photo.  ‘No, but you can scan the QR codes beside the paintings which tell you more information about them’. [If you don't know what QR codes are and how galleries and museums use them read this short explanation].

I couldn’t be bothered with that.  That is, until I got to a breathtaking painting that had absolutely no explanation about why it took your breathe away.  The painting appeared to be of a man (with hairy forearms, moustache, thick neck) but dressed in formal women’s court clothing with a bust. The description had no mention about this surprising phenomena.  At that point I got my iphone out and checked the QR code.  Disappointingly still no info on the surprise, simply that the artist had ‘a good eye for detail and had painted the hair well. The woman was graceless and had a less than feminine appearance’.  I made a note of the painting to look it up afterwards and see if anyone else had more information on the person in it that they were willing to candidly share. Perhaps a Wikipedia entry? The painting is called Senora de Delicado de Imaz by Vincent Lopez Portana from the Spanish Court of 1833.

On leaving the exhibition I felt in dire need of a cup of tea so headed towards what I thought was the café, only to be blocked by a guard who demanded to see my entry ticket (yes there are a lot of guards).  I queried why I should need to show my entry ticket to partake of tea and was told that this café was themed with Spanish food (?). I was about to turn away when she also mentioned that the photo booths were included in the ticket price.  Being a sucker for a photo I couldn’t resist so passed through the checkpoint having no idea what the photo booth would do. 

Well – talk about surprise!! You are absolutely not allowed to take a photo of a painting in an art gallery.  The answer usually given is because of copyright or mis-use or inappropriate use of images. Clearly the images in the Prado exhibition are out of copyright dating from 1500-1800. Images of them are sold in the gift shop.  However the photo-booth allowed me to stick my own face into a selection of the Prado portraits (in a similar way to sticking your head through a funfair cardboard cut out of Popeye and Olive) and create my own digital image.  After all the high brow gallery poppycock I have heard over the years about galleries digitising images and rules they have made up around this, I was staggered and thrilled to be able to do this fun activity (which I think is probably aimed at children!).  It was the most fun I have had for a while and my first foray into what is commonly called ‘digital vandalism’ or mis-appropriate use of digital artworks.

It made me recall the battle that Wikipedia had with art galleries and use of images over a long duration.  On one particular occasion Liam Wyatt the VP of Wikimedia Australia spoke about how the public were not allowed to take or share photos of artworks for invalid reasons of copyright ownership or inappropriate or commercial use of images, but then the galleries or museums in question would use the same images themselves to make things like ties or mugs for a profit in the gift shop. This was such a case exactly, but more extreme than any I have yet seen. In case you are in doubt – I am endorsing the activity offered in the photo booths at Queensland Art Gallery.  The e-mail I received with my bastardised portrait also had an animated version… where things like my hand and head moved – crikey! The experience led  me to formally write to Queensland Art Gallery (via their online form) and ask them why if I can do this I was not allowed to take a photo without flash of the same painting in the exhibition?  That was 7 days ago and I still have not had a reply….

Incidentally I cannot find a Wikipedia entry for the portrait of Senora de Delicado de Imaz, or anything about her life and circumstance which I am sure is most interesting.  I could also not find a really good digital print online that matched the real life experience of seeing the painting. I did manage however to take a photo of the painting myself via the photo booth.  For some strange reason the photo booth kept offering me this painting as the perfect match to put my face into.

However I preferred to go with a much more regal match.

Me with my head digitally stuck into the portrait of La infanta Isabel Clara Eugenia Magdalena Ruiz by Alonso Sanchez Coello 1588.
The animation had me fiddling with my minature and the monkeys.....

 

Crowdsourcing and Social Media at US National Archives (NARA). The Citizen Archivist Dashboard

Last week I attended the International Congress of Archives (ICA 2012) which was held in Brisbane. Over 1,000 Archivists from 93 countries attended.

The much anticipated opening keynote on the first day was given by David Ferriero

head of US National Archives.  He is the first librarian to become a National Archivist, previously being in charge of New York Public Library and known for promoting use of social media and relationships with Google and Wikipedia.  His talk was called ‘A world of social media’. I was looking forward to hearing what the US National Archives are doing with social media and crowdsourcing.  People were generally of the opinion that this organisation will/is leading by example in this field.

David Ferriero took to the stage and took us by surprise.  He only used 20 minutes of his 40 minute slot, gave no presentation, instead reading from his notes at breakneck speed and bombarding us with statistics that were largely out of context. At the end he took no questions and dashed off the stage.  He left a surprised and bewildered audience behind.  I for one was immensely disappointed not to see and hear more about some of the exciting US Archives activities. He of course may have had mitigating circumstances that I am totally unaware of.  He did however give small tasters of what his organisation is doing. There was brief mention of large scale crowdsourcing on unspecified projects, a citizen archivists dashboard, and a relationship with Wikipedia which peaked my interest.

So I decided to follow up online and find out for myself what may be happening at NARA. I took me quite some time to search the internet and blogs and get the information I had hoped David would give in his keynote, but it was worth it. Here is what I found:

1. Citizen Archivist Dashboard Webpage http://www.archives.gov/citizen-archivist/

In January 2012 the US National Archives launched the Citizen Archivist Dashboard. This is a great webpage bringing all the online and physical social engagement and crowdsourcing activities together.  It is easy for someone to see what options they may have to help the US National Archives. It is very clearly designed and I like it a lot.

 

2. Transcription Projects

• US National Archives Tool http://transcribe.archives.gov/

There are two transcription projects going on for handwritten records. Firstly the National Archives Transcription Pilot Project. It appears still to be in ‘pilot’ mode (started in January 2012) since only 300 documents (about 1,000 pages) are available for transcription. They have been very carefully selected from a collection of billions of pages and graded by colour codes according to how difficult the handwriting is to read. This pre-selection must have taken very valuable staff time. You can browse or search by difficulty of transcription, year, and the status of transcription: “Not Yet Started,” “Partially Transcribed,” and “Completed.” You then choose a page to work on and then that page is blocked to other users, so it’s not being edited by multiple users at the same time.  The interface is very simple, much like the Australian Newspapers. In a free text box beside the image you can transcribe what you see. No login is required, though you do have to complete a captcha. 

The missing part is that I can’t see how many people have transcribed what.  It’s not clear if the documents disappear from here when fully transcribed, and how and where they become full text searchable in the collection.  It also seems to be a time consuming process for NARA staff to do the pre-selection and difficulty rating of the documents. This is of course a very small pilot and hopefully lessons will be learnt and the site will be developed further to reach it’s full potential. Also it would be good if more documents became available for transcription. This is one of the easiest handwritten transcription tools I have seen.  I could not find any information about who developed the tool and if it is available open source.

Interestingly David Ferriero says that many US school children are no longer taught cursive handwriting and therefore cannot read handwriting. He says ‘Help us transcribe records and guarantee that school children can make use of our documents’. I’m not quite clear if he thinks this is a potential crowdsourcing exercise for school children to learn handwriting and become better educated, or if adults are supposed to do it so that school children can just read the finished text.

• Wikisource Tool for Wikiproject NARA. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:WikiProject_NARA

The National Archives have developed a relationship with the Wikipedia Community and currently have a Wikipedian in residence. As part of that program they have shared some primary handwritten national documents into ‘Wikisource’ for transcription via the Wikisource Tool. These documents are mostly at the beginner level in terms of difficulty. I’m not clear if they are the same ones in being used in the Archives own pilot, or different documents. I’m also not clear why they are piloting two different methods for transcription, or what the initial results are compared to each other. Wikisource offers more than transcription however, Wikipedians (if they can get access to original documents or copies) can also scan documents and OCR them.

3. Scanning Projects

• Scanathons

For reasons I don’t understand the US National Archives has only digitised 750,000 of its 40 million images. This is a very low figure for an organisation like this. They seem to be focusing quite a lot of effort on getting physical volunteers to come in person to the Archives to digitise/scan images for them at ‘Scanathons’. This started in 2011. In January 2012 there was a 4 day Wikipedia ExtravaSCANza. Over the 4 days a group of Wikipedians met in the Still Pictures Research Room and scanned 500 images on desktop scanners. Each day there was a theme: NASA, women’s history, Chile, and battleships.

• Photograph it yourself http://www.flickr.com/groups/citizenarchivist/

NARA encourages readers to take their own photos of records in the reading rooms and upload them to a special group in Flickr.  The important thing here is that they should also be described with title, series, and record group if possible so they can be found. So far only 20 people have joined the group and 133 photos have been uploaded (most of these by the same person). I’m not clear how NARA intends to link these digital images back to the item descriptions in their collections but this is a great idea to tackle large scale digitisation of images.

 

4. Tag it Tuesdays http://blogs.archives.gov/online-public-access/?cat=260

The tagging facility, unlike the other pilots seems to me to be unlikely to succeed in its objectives. This is perhaps because of the tight controls that have been placed around it and the isolation of the activity from normal search and browse behaviour. Whilst anyone can easily transcribe a record without needing to login the process for tagging is difficult.

The activity is focused on Tuesdays and themed around a topic.  Records for the topic are pre-selected by the Archives and available in an online group e.g. Elvis, Titanic.  Volunteers must register and follow a set of guidelines; Tags will be reviewed by NARA staff before being accepted and going live on the database. I looked at the topics and it was unclear to me why if the Archives had already identified the items as being about Elvis they couldn’t simply generate an automatic tag for ‘Elvis’. In my opinion tagging is not actually a crowdsourcing activity because individuals are motivated to add tags to help themselves find things, it is a by product of search. Research shows it is rare for users to have concensus on tag terms and use. Crowdsourcing activities achieve a big clear goal that could not be achieved by individuals alone, and everyone in the crowd should be aware of how they are helping the ultimate goal.  

5. Indexing the 1940 Census

On April 2, 2012, NARA released the digital images of the 1940 United States Federal Census after a 72 year embargo. The census images will be uploaded and made available on Archives.com, FindMyPast.com, National Archives, ProQuest, and FamilySearch.org. The entire 1940 census data will be indexed by a community of volunteers and made available for free. The free index of the census records and corresponding images will be available to the public for perpetuity.

6. Useful Links

I found a recent presentation given this year by Pamela Wright – Chief Digital Access Strategist at NARA which gives screenshots of what I have talked about above. ‘From access to engagement’

7. Social Media

NARA are active users of social media channels and they have started to monitor their activity. The Social media statistics from NARA May 2012 may be interesting reading for some.

I would be interested in reading more presentations or articles about the citizen archivist pilot projects from NARA and finding out what they have achieved and learnt so far. I hope this information is made available to the archives and library community soon.  Please reply in comment if you have any more information on the pilot activities.

If only they would crowdsource! – Diamond Jubilee - Royal Archives at Windsor Castle

Many years ago I worked for a software company installing the first archive management systems into large UK archives such as the London Metropolitan Archives, Cumbria Archives at Carlisle Castle and the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle.  It was a challenging time for archives going from paper systems to computer systems, in fact very similar to the challenges archives now face transitioning from managing paper records to born digital records.  Ironically I have just returned again to the archives sector and am now working at the National Archives of Australia on the second challenge.

When the first computer systems were installed in archives it often came as a shock to archivists to discover that when the system was installed it would be ‘empty’ and their records would not somehow miraculously appear in the system. This was the first piece of news I usually had to convey in training before showing an online process for acquisitions. I particularly remember that at the Royal Archives they estimated with their current staff of 4 it would take them 700 years to record their archive collection into their new system, and they were somewhat despondent to say the least. Nevertheless the Queen was pleased with the install of the first computerised system at Windsor Castle and awarded the software company I worked for the Royal Warrant, which meant we could use the Royal Coat of Arms on our letterhead.  The warrant is more often seen on pots of jam and pickle than on software. The celebration of implementation party at Windsor Castle with members of the Royal Household and staff was one to remember. 

The Round Tower at Windsor Castle contained every hand written record every monarch and members of their household had ever created. Queen Victoria’s collection was particularly large.  The Royal Archives could only be contacted by letter and each year less than 10 well vetted members of the public were allowed to access a very restricted and pre-agreed part of the collection under strict supervision.  Because it was largely uncatalogued, described or known there was a terrible fear of what a member of the public might find in the archives. This was understandable since household records such as the cost of banquets were intermingled with personal letters and diaries.  From the public's point of view the archive is that of our Kings and Queens and we would like to access it, but from HRH's view it is her private family archive. Although it is now more acceptable to expose skeletons in the family closet and programs such as "Who do you think you are" promote this, there is probably a reticence from aristocracy and royalty to do this. The Royal Archives is one of the richest, most interesting and significant collections ever created.  It could aptly be described as a pot of gold – an absolute treasure trove. The archivists were aware of this and some of the treasures within it.  The Royal Library at Windsor Castle was in a similar situation and also had extremely restricted access.  Because I have always championed access to archive and library collections I felt very sad whenever I thought of the treasures locked up and hidden (literally) at Windsor Castle.

I was very interested therefore to read about a new development at the Royal Archives timed to coincide with the Diamond Jubilee.  The Queen released this message:

“In this the year of my Diamond Jubilee, I am delighted to be able to present, for the first time, the complete on-line collection of Queen Victoria's journals from the Royal Archives. These diaries cover the period from Queen Victoria's childhood days to her Accession to the Throne, marriage to Prince Albert, and later, her Golden and Diamond Jubilees. Thirteen volumes in Victoria's own hand survive, and the majority of the remaining volumes were transcribed after Queen Victoria's death by her youngest daughter, Princess Beatrice, on her mother's instructions. It seems fitting that the subject of the first major public release of material from the Royal Archives is Queen Victoria, who was the first Monarch to celebrate a Diamond Jubilee. It is hoped that this historic collection will make a valuable addition to the unique material already held by the Bodleian Libraries at Oxford University, and will be used to enhance our knowledge and understanding of the past.”

I was intrigued by this and immediately found the website http://www.queenvictoriasjournals.org/home.do which tells us a lot more about Queen Victoria’s diaries and that this was a project undertaken in conjunction with the Bodleian Library at Oxford and Pro-Quest.  However on looking further it was a bit disappointing since although every page of all the journals has been scanned they have not all been transcribed.  Because they are all handwritten, they won’t be fully text searchable until they are all transcribed, a process which at present is most effectively done by the human hand and eye.  The website doesn’t give any indication of when or how they will be transcribed that I could see, although it says it ‘is in progress’. So far only the first diary has been transcribed, by whom I am not sure. I bet the project is only letting academics do it, who will be paid lots of money and progress very slowly. There is a lot to do: 1832- 1901 since Queen Victoria wrote her diary every day.

If ever I saw a collection that was so well-suited to crowdsourcing for public transcription this is it!  I could guarantee that in a few days or weeks all of Queen Victoria’s diaries would be transcribed by a willing and fascinated public. The handwriting is hard to decipher but with thousands of eyes, and amateur/professional genealogists and historians used to reading old writing, that are highly motivated I am sure it could be achieved. I feel excited just imagining it.  But why stop there?  What about the rest of the collection - the offical royal records and the personal records?  When is that going to come out of hiding? It’s just crying out for public description, tagging and transcribing. If only.  If only.

Extract of Queen Victoria’s diary.

Then thinking I would come back later and have another look I was most disappointed to read that following the example set by the British Library with its UK digitised newspapers the intent is to restrict access to the UK only, and to charge for access from July.  So loyal British subjects living in Commonwealth Countries, and academic researchers – you only have 14 more days to look at this for free, or at all.  Great shame!  But congratulations to whoever it was behind the scenes that convinced HRH to release the diaries from the Royal Archives, and who set up and managed the project with the Bodleian and Pro-Quest.  Bravo!!  Perhaps we just need to beg and grovel for more content and offer our unconditional help to get it for free.

Photo by Rose. June 2012. After participating in Trooping the Colour for the Queens Birthday in Canberra, Irish Guard Cliff Doidge (who plays the clarinet in the Royal Military Band and is on exchange from London to Australia for 4 months) stands beside Lake Burley Griffin with the National Library of Australia behind.