Wikis, CMSs, & CommunityEnhancing Publishing in Libraries

by Michael Ritchey (Twitter: mtritchey)

Today’s Lesson

• Overview of FamilySearch services• Challenges & strengths in 2006• Solution Concept & Requirements• Quicken publishing cycle• Multiply content output• Boost teamwork, morale, community relations• Improve content design, quality & relevance

Some Background on Our Perspective

1. Family History Library & Research Support2. Research Support: 50 questions/day by phone & e-mail3. 80% of questions answered by volunteers4. Our volunteers & customers are senior citizens5. 2006: Customer Relationship Management (CRM)6. CRM model: customer’s question routed to an agent7. 4500 family history centers worldwide8. CRM model is not scalable to help family history center

volunteers9. 2006: Knowledge Management System (KMS)10. KMS closed to volunteers; obsolete content

Challenges

Challenge: Advise Genealogists Worldwide

Research advice on FamilySearch Internet, 2006

Challenge: cover more places

Challenge: cover more languages

Research advice on FamilySearch.org about countries in their native language, 2006

Challenge: Update content faster

Research advice on FamilySearch.org revised 2001-2006.

Challenge: connect customers with experts

How do I find birth records from Brazil?

(Yawn!) I wish I had someone to help!

Sounds tough!

I dunno

Implement old idea

Achievedenial Fail

Our time-tested model

2006 Revelation: Headquarters can’t

do it alone.

Is there a better way?

Our Strengths as an Organization

1. Expert staff

Our Strengths as an Organization

1. Expert staff2. World-renowned

record collection

Our Strengths as an Organization

1. Expert staff2. World-renowned

record collection3. 60,000 volunteers

Challenges + Strengths = Community

1. Cover more places2. Cover more

languages3. Update content faster4. Connect customers

with experts

1. Expert staff2. World-renowned

record collection 3. 60,000 volunteers

Challenges Strengths

Solution: Community!

Selling the concept: Wikipedia

Selling the concept: Wikipedia

1. 8th most popular Website2. Content written by community3. 3,000 new entries per day4. Most errors corrected in 5 mins.5. 11 edits per article

Requirements

Requirements

1. Open source 2. WYSIWYG authoring tool (yo mamma)3. Article history/version control4. Limit visibility of some articles5. Volunteer authoring6. Easy interlinking7. Admin can lock down a page (Home page)8. Notifications9. System deployable by non-engineers!

Solutions

First solution: Plone CMS

FamilySearch Wiki: Plone site

Questions of concurrent authoring scalability

2007 MediaWiki iteration

Quicken the Publication Cycle

Challenge: Update content faster

Every revision required input from• Director (approval)• Publication strategist• Usability specialist• Technical writers• Editors• Correlation• Software engineers

Update content faster on a wiki

• Get an idea• Add it to the wiki• Get input• Iterate

Shortens the publishing cycle…

…from months to minutes.

Multiply Content Output

Multiply Content Output

1. 800 19,000 docs since 20072. 82,000 edits in 2009 (as of 10/04/09)

3. Top contributors have 10k-16k edits ea.4. 2009 edits = 719,000,000 characters5. 6,900 characters/edit avg.6. Top pages have 300-500 edits7. Reference librarians writing 22,000 hours/year

Boost Teamwork, Morale, Community

Relations

Teamwork, Morale, Community

1. Collaborative projects2. Unfettered Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)3. SMEs reach out for project help4. Collaboration between community vols. & staff5. Weekly user group/community meeting on Adobe

Connect

Improve Quality &

Design

Quality

• Footnotes• Bylines• Change history• Discussion pages• Patrollers• Moderators• Watch lists & change notifications• Members are Pit Bulls• Community Meeting

Learnings

1. Relinquish control2. Initiate projects with small teams; require 70%

consensus for redesign3. Govern by social constraints, not system

constraints4. Let community try any miscreants5. Invest lots of time w/ community6. Share success metrics to win support & resources7. Empower, train & support volunteer project leaders

Today’s Challenges (Got advice?)

1. Not getting 25% of librarians’ time2. Wiki mgrs. spread too thin to manage content dev

• Empower & train community as project mgrs.• Experimenting w/ right mix of project mgmt. vs.

production

3. Democracy design paralysis. Limit re-work!• Projects: Small team makes initial design; later design

changes require 70% consensus.

Conclusion: We are smarter than me!

1. The job is too big for Headquarters2. Volunteer communities can do big jobs3. Success = community collaboration

wiki.FamilySearch.orgTwitter: @mtritchey