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Using crowdsourcing to create the UK SoundMap - Richard Ranft, British Library
Metadata & Web 2.0 - 4th annual CIGS seminar
23 Feb 2011
National Library of Scotland
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Radio Aporee map
Bullet 1 Bullet2
Bullet 3
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UK Sound Map: Aims
Explore potential for web mash-ups for digital
scholarship
Partnership with Noise Futures Network
Map evolution of national soundscapes by aggregating
everyday sounds from around UK for 12 months
Test low-cost, innovative techniques for
crowdsourcing research data with real-time capture-&-
publish model
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“Twitter without typing…
User generated BBC Radio 4
The Youtube of the spoken word”
Audioboo app
Free app, launched March 2009
iPhone & Android ‘smart’phones
-or, Audioboo via any web browser
5 minutes limit
Twitter, Facebook integrationContributors 80,000
Recordings 280,000
Listens 11 m. (66,000/day)
Top contributors UK, USA, Germany
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280,000 Audioboos
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Method
‘Pro’ Audioboo account – magic tags
Pilot in Sheffield city July 2010
UK-wide August 2010
Use of social networks
Amazon cloud service
FLAC audio, metadata (tags, #uksm, photo,
time/date, GPS)
capture
FLAC, metadata
archive
mp3, metadata
publish
?#uksm moderation magic tag
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Web browser recording & upload
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Challenges
Legal / reputational risks of user-generated content: deliberate or inadvertent capture of 3rd party rights defamatory remarks invasions of privacy or compromised confidentiality
Mitigated by: moderation of all contributions Take-down notice Clear instructions to contributors Some legal protections (incidental licences, reasonable doubt)
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Technical quality - lowering the quality bar?
iPhone : 22kHz, 16-bit mono FLAC
Other phones – large variety of other files
Omni mic – wind noise
Web uploads – large variety, stereo PCM wav but also highly compressed formats
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iPhone - white noise spectrum
9.99 Hz 97.96 960.63 9420.40
-140.00
-120.00
-100.00
-80.00
-60.00
-40.00
-20.00
dBFS
anti-aliasing filter
speech emphasis
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Android phone - white noise spectrum
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Results
Whose brainchild was this? Will anyone really be interested in sounds originating from 2010? Don't we have anything better to do with taxpayers money? (a Blogger)
The increasingly innovative British Library (BBC Technology blog)
@dollyskilbeck: Can't describe the pure pleasure and pride in contributing to @UK_SoundMap #uksm #audioboo (Twitter)
Winner, UK social media communications award (public sector category)
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Results II
1,600 recordings from July 10- Feb ‘11 260 contributors (≈ 4 per contributor) 82% made with mobiles. The remainder used dedicated audio
recorders Voices and direct human actions Amplified sounds and music Machinery Sounds of wind and water Animals
Emerging themes (e.g. decline of whistling in public; female voices predominate in public announcements)
Very limited metadata
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Moderating the data
6% recordings rejected to date:
Reasons for rejection: Copyright (music/broadcast/performance) 36% Poor quality (wind noise, low level) 22% No geodata 19% Obscenities, time wasters, advertising etc 19% Recorded outside UK 3%
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Locations
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time and tide bell, Bosta (Outer Hebrides, Scotland)
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Next project: Evolving Englishes map
Read 6 words:controversy, garage, neither, scone, schedule, attitude
Or, read 'Mr Tickle‘:
• It was half past eight on a rather warm, sunny morning. In his small house at the other side of the wood, Mr Tickle was fast asleep. He was having a dream. It must have been a very funny dream because it made him laugh out loud and that woke him up. He sat up in bed, stretched his extraordinary long arms and yawned an enormous yawn….
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Conclusions
Selection - still a manual process
Low quality – mass observation
Simple to implement: RSS feeds to Google map mashup
Cost effective way to rapidly collect large amounts of data
Augments existing research collections
Engages wider public with your institution; ‘democratises the curator's role’
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Thanks for listening!
http://sounds.bl.uk/uksoundmap
http://twitter.com/uk_soundmap
http://www.bl.uk/evolvingenglish/maplisten.html
www.bl.uk/listentonaturewww.bl.uk/soundsfamiliar
www.bl.uk/sounds http://radio.aporee.org/
http://audioboo.fm/www.bl.uk/evolvingenglish/