DOCUMENTING THE NOW

CHRIS FREELANDASSOCIATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIAN

Supporting Scholarly Use & Preservation of Social Media Content

COLLECTING HISTORY AS IT HAPPENSTwitter was a primary source of information about the protests in and in the name of Ferguson.

How can organizations archive Twitter data along with other collections to make a comprehensive data set available for research in ways that are ethically sound & in compliance with the Twitter Terms of Service?

#Ferguson

ABOUT THE PROJECTCollaborative project between:

• 2 year project, funded by Andrew W. Mellon Foundation• Feb 1, 2016 – Jan 31, 2018

• $517,000• Funding project coordinator, application development, subawards to collaborators, Advisory

Board meetings, equipment & outreach

BUILDING OFF EXISTING FERGUSON EFFORTS

Documenting Ferguson

Ferguson Collecting Initiative

Joel Levy, “Ferguson, Night 3, photo 4,” WUSTL Digital Gateway Image Collections & Exhibitions, accessed August 12, 2015, http://omeka.wustl.edu/omeka/items/show/8669.

DOCUMENTING THE NOW PROJECT GOALS1. Create the DocNow application

• Cloud-ready, open-source application for collecting tweets, associated Web content, & metadata• Create data visualizations & data exports

2. Create a Ferguson social media data set for research & preservation• Use Tweets and related data (Documenting Ferguson, oral histories) to create a data set that scholars

can use to answer research questions about Ferguson protests

3. Produce a white paper• Address ethical, copyright & access issues for collection, preservation & dissemination of Twitter data

4. Convene an Advisory Board• Scholars, activists & technologists who can help shape application

5. Build a community of users & advocates around DocNow• Identify other scholars interested in using DocNow for their own research

PROJECT TEAM

Chris

Bergis

Ed

Desiree

Francis

Alexandra

Dan

Co-PIs Project Coordinator Developers

ROLE OF LIBRARIES & ARCHIVES IN COLLECTING HISTORY AS IT HAPPENS

Mark Regester, “Protester holding a sign,” WUSTL Digital Gateway Image Collections & Exhibitions, accessed March 5, 2016. http://documentingferguson.wustl.edu/omeka/items/show/8266

CURATING VS COLLECTINGTraditional Appraisal:• Includes research and input from different individuals • an evaluation of the collection content within the

framework of a collection development policy • an assessment of the content for research use• an assessment of originality and authenticity• ownership transfers to archive

Collecting at scale:• No selection• No assessment of content• No quality control• Contributor / author retains rights • Contextual curation via research projects

Mark Regester, “Woman with Obama sign Greater Grace Church,” WUSTL Digital Gateway Image Collections & Exhibitions, accessed August 12, 2015, http://omeka.wustl.edu/omeka/items/show/8280.

Courtesy Sonya Rooney, University Archivist, WUSTL Libraries

ETHICAL ISSUES WITH ARCHIVING TWITTER DATATwitter was heavily used during protests

Public

Central gathering point for other social media channels• Publish a photo on Instagram or Vine & Share on Twitter

But what about:• Identifying / Incriminating photos• Honoring intent

• If we’ve captured a Tweet that someone has deleted, do we • Do nothing, and keep it in full in the archive?• Mark it as deleted, but still make it available for research use?• Delete it from our archive? White paper will address these

issues and more…