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VIAFbot and Wikipedia… together at last

Posted on December 13, 2012 by

OCLC recently announced their VIAFbot team has finished reciprocal name authority work on the 250,000+ English biography article links in Wikipedia. In late June, the OCLC Research folks released the Linking Library Data to Wikipedia (part 1) video explaining VIAF and how the VIAFbot/Wikipedia project would integrate library authority data into Wikipedia name articles.

Just think—OCLC name authority data inserted in Wikipedia records! But wait, that’s not all—this is a reciprocal project, so those Wikipedia names are also being ingested into the VIAF authority files (social tagging).  If there is a conflict, the bot will note it for human inspection on Wikipedia.

Remember in October how we reported that the IU Society of American Archivists–Student Chapter (SAA-SC) hosted a Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon at the Indiana University Archives? I looked up one of their edited pages and sure enough–the VIAF authority record noted that there was an updated name authority harvested from Wikipedia:

william lowe bryan‏ ‎‡d november 11 1860-november 21 1955‏

Reciprocal name heading linking in VIAF showing the Wikipedia name form

The second part of the Linking Library Data to Wikipedia video is insightful because Max Klein discusses why he helped create the VIAFbot, the value of user feedback, and what went into getting the request for the bot approved by Wikipedia. Merrilee Proffitt discusses how they plan to have the bot seek out other cooperative name authority data projects (ORCID project).

I highly recommend watching these OCLC shorts because they are short, informative, fun, and–thanks to viewing them–I can now pronounce VIAF correctly (Veeeeee F). Thumbs up!

IU Society of American Archivists-Student Chapter Hosts Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon

Posted on October 9, 2012 by

On Saturday, October 6th the IU Society of American Archivists–Student Chapter (SAA-SC) hosted a Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon at the Indiana University Archives. October is American Archives Month and the group modeled their event around the Wikipedia Loves Libraries initiative.

The goal was to enhance the existing Wikipedia entries for eight former Indiana University Presidents by referencing and tapping into the amazing resources at the IU Archives. Dina Kellams, SAA-SC Advisor and Associate Archivist for the IU Archives and Chanitra Bishop, Emerging Technologies Librarian for the IU Libraries guided the students on the basics of editing in Wikipedia and helped them identify resources to justify their entries. This is a good (local) example of funneling a LAM’s expertise to users.

Remember last October when the MDG blog highlighted Wikipedia Loves Librarians? No? Well good news: you’ll no-doubt see more of these GLAM WikiProjects in October–especially during Open Access Week on the last full week of October.

 

 

Classifying galaxies

Posted on February 24, 2012 by

Bob Noel recently pointed me to this example of user-contributed metadata: citizen astronomers have classified galaxies via the Galaxy Zoo project. Information about the project can be viewed at the archived website.

A ‘Galaxy Zoo 2’ project is currently underway here. Galaxy Zoo: Hubble enlists astronomers in the classification of galaxies found in the archives of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.

March topic: user-contributed metadata

Posted on February 21, 2012 by

The next meeting of the Metadata Discussion Group will be on Tuesday, March 6th. Library staff, SLIS faculty and students, and those on campus interested in the topic are welcome to attend.

This month, it’s all about metadata from our users! User-contributed metadata, or social metadata, is being explored as one way to help citizens engage with collections and participate in a conversation about cultural memory. OCLC’s series of reports, “Social Metadata for Libraries, Archives, and Museums (LAMs),” conducts a survey of sites providing social metadata services, provides an analysis of survey results completed by site managers, and makes recommendations on social metadata features most relevant to LAMs.

DATE: Tuesday, March 6
TIME: 9:30—10:30
PLACE: Wells Library 043
TOPIC TO INVESTIGATE: User-contributed metadata: the OCLC Social Metadata for LAMs reports

SOME RESOURCES TO CONSULT:

SOME SOCIAL METADATA SITES IN ACTION:

  • From the Indianapolis Museum of Art’s tagging project using Steve Tagger software [link]
  • From the Library of Congress Flickr pilot project: a ‘best of’ collection of user-described photos: [link]
  • From the National Archives’ pilot project that engages citizens in the transcription of manuscripts: [link]

Hope to see you there!

OCLC research report: Social Metadata for LAMs

Posted on December 19, 2011 by

OCLC has released part two (of three) of the research report, Social Metadata for Libraries, Archives and Museums. Part I: Site Reviews was released in September. Part II: Survey Analysis was released this month. Continue reading “OCLC research report: Social Metadata for LAMs”

Summary of MDG Session, 10-15-09

Posted on November 5, 2009 by

* Written by Jenn Riley *

Articles discussed:

Continue reading “Summary of MDG Session, 10-15-09”