theory and practice of building digital public spaces
TRANSCRIPT
The Theory and Practice of Digital Public Spaces
Alex Carruthers
2/10/2015
Info-Nexus
February 6, 2015
Outline
• Digital public spaces in the context of
Edmonton Public Library (EPL)
• Digital public spaces for other cultural
organizations
• Building EPL’s first digital public space
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Digital Public Spaces Intern
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• Engage in research and community consultation
to define Digital Public Spaces
• Determine potential roles for EPL
• Investigate, recommend, and help plan EPL’s
next steps in developing digital projects that
meet community-defined needs
• Investigate the role of EPL in supporting Open
Data initiatives
Goals of the Report:
• To meaningfully define the term “digital public space”
for EPL
• To identify trends in the development or improvement
of digital public spaces in libraries or other cultural
institutions
• To investigate specific digital public space projects in
more detail, learning about their successes,
challenges and technical and administrative
infrastructure
• To recommend service directions for EPL
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Who else is talking about digital public spaces?
• BBC Archives
• The Creative Exchange
• Future Everything 2013
• Legal and technological implications
• Why and how do libraries, museums, archives collect, store and make accessible cultural history?
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Digital public spaces
• Are open and interoperable in as many ways as possible
“Open means anyone can freely access, use, modify, and share for any purpose (subject, at most, to requirements that preserve provenance and openness).” – Open Definition
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Who’s working on it?
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NYPL Labs – What’s on the Menu
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~ 1,327,975 dishes
transcribed from
17,541 menus since 2012
Menus are reviewed and
mapped
http://menus.nypl.org/
“Far from being an instrument which enables us to ultimately better deliver content to end users, crowdsourcing is the best way to actually engage our users in the fundamental reason that these digital collections exist in the first place.”
-Trevor Owens, Digital Archivist, Library of Congress
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Digital public spaces
• Can be created in collaboration with the
public from the very beginning
• Can fulfill the goal of facilitating
meaningful engagement with
collections
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How do we build one?
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1. Successful projects have tended to be adaptations of
experiments with existing collections of digital content
2. Successful projects have tended to appeal to an
identifiable community or enthusiast group
3. Trained and dedicated staff are required to maintain the
project
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• Unconference March 22, 2014
• Invited members of the local music
community
• 50 participants
• Participant-
driven meeting
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Regularly
changing
content!
Interactive site
that reaches
out to the
community
Curated by the
community
Multimedia content: audio,
video, stories, images…
Celebrate
history AND
support the
current scene
Contemporary Local Music Collection
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• Edmonton music from the last
5 years in any genre
• Selected by small jury of
interested local music fans
• 100 new contributions a year
• One time honorarium for
musicians
• Music available for download
and streaming
• Direct traffic to options to
purchase content
Local Music History Archive• Crowdsourced
audio, video, images and stories related to local music history
• For streaming and download when relevant
• Audio content included in playlist tool
• History preserved and made accessible
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gdao.org
Accessibility
• Web Content Accessibly Standards
Archiving
• Support from the University of Alberta Digital Initiatives Department
Partnerships
• Dead Venues Project
• Documentaries and Maps
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Timeline
• Call for submissions – Feb 2 – 23
• Jury review – Feb 23 – Mar 16
• Transcription tool development – March
• Usability/beta testing – March/April
• Launch Spring 2015
• Concerts in Summer and Fall 2015
• Summer Digitization Events
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Digital Publics
• Digital public is limited; digital divide exists along lines of race, class and gender
• Digital literacy support is key• EPL offers courses for beginners all the way up
to game design and robotics
• Opportunity to integrate resources like Treehouse and Lynda.com
• New publics are emerging and are open to collaboration
• Sharing, community engagement and supporting lifelong learning
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