Jim, Nancy & the Dutch national library - a story about 3 explorers

http://www.flickr.com/photos/scouttwentynine/4968998806/sizes/o/in/photosof-jimforest

Jim, Nancy & the Dutch national library

A story about 3 explorers

Hallo, my name is Olaf Janssen

I’m a product developer at KB, the national library of the Netherlands

in The Hague

Photo: Olaf Janssen

These are my colleagues…

Source: KB intranet

Source: KB intranet

Every day we give our best…

... because we are on a mission...

http://kb.nl/bst/beleid/missie.html


Our mission is:

Bring people and information together

Our mission is:

Bring people and information together


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Internet_Archive_book_scanner_1.jpg

Does converting paper into bits & bytes bring people and information together?

Does storing these bits & bytes bring people and information together?

(Foto: KB - Jacqueline van der Kort)

We “offer” They consume

Does “broadcasting” these bits & bytes bring people and information together?

Slide: @mpedson

Bringing together, according to me, is all about creating, or at least facilitating dialogue

Flickr: alexbcthompson

Flickr: alexbcthompson

Bringing together, according to me, is all about creating, or at least facilitating dialogue

Dialogue is about communicating two ways

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Two-people-talking-logo.jpg

Dialogue is about listening to each other

Flickr: rthakrar

Dialogue is about sharing information

Flickr: furiousgeorge81

Dialogue is about learning from each other

http://youthinarts.org/blog/2011/04

Back to the mission & vision of the KB …

I noticed the WHY is missing ...

(the WHY touches the soul of any organisation *)

* http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html

WHY

does the KB want to bring people and information

together???

Just a bet:

“Because we believe our written cultural heritage is so wonderful we want to show it to as

many people as possible”

?!

My best personal bet:

”Because ultimately people want to know who they are. For that they explore their histories &

origins.

We want to help them in discovering & understanding their worlds”

!!

Example: people wanting to find out about

THE MIDDLE AGES

(in Europe)

http://kb.nl/galerie/middeleeuwen/onderwijs-en.html

Question:

Where do people go to learn about

medieval times?


Some would start here …

Some would start here …

Because KB has wonderful medieval objects online …


Flickr: jimforest

and onsite.

(and the expertise about it!)

Many would start here …

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Ages

Or here.

But there are more ways to learn about medieval times…

Flickr: jimforest


Flickr: jimforest

This photo was taken in the KB by a certain Jim Forest (?)


This is Jim Forest .. and this is Nancy, his wife

This is Jim Forest .. and this is Nancy, his wife

aaa

Originally from the US, they now live in the town of Alkmaar, the

Netherlands

(which is all about canals & Dutch cheese)

Jim & Nancy have a tremendous zest for life, and life-long learning.

They document this in photos …

to share with their friends & family back home in the US…

... and with us.

They share nearly 23,600 (!) images in public sets …

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimforest/sets/?&page=1

about every possible interest in their

lives…


Mermaids


Auschwitz


Stanley Spencer…


Paris…


Cats…



Jim & Nancy, like most other people, have amazingly diverse interests!

Finding out about these worlds is all about making connections, it’s an exploration, a collage


Jim & Nancy, like most other people, have amazingly diverse interests!

Finding out about these worlds is all about making connections, it’s an exploration, a collage

This is important, I’ll come back to this later!

Jim & Nancy are also interested in finding out about the Middle Ages

(!)

These are some of the photos taken by Jim & Nancy with “medieval” in the

description

In 2005 Jim & Nancy visited the KB

… where they learned about medieval manuscripts.

They shared that learning experience with the rest of the world (= these photos & annotations)

Jim has also bookmarked photos taken by other Flickr-photographers.

These include medieval objects as well.

Like this one ... A painting from 13th century Spain

http://www.flickr.com/photos/elissacorsini/2163082112/http://www.flickr.com/photos/elissacorsini/2163082112/in/photostream


This photo is part of a collection named “The Cloisters” (?)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/elissacorsini/sets/72157601070709853/?page=2

(yes, indeed, there it is!)


The Cloisters is apparently a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan, New York, USA. They curate a lot of European medieval art & architecture

(I did not know that before making this presentation)


http://www.metmuseum.org/visit/visit-the-cloisters


Please note: all these photos were taken by enthusiastic amateur photographers, they are not “official images” from the MetMA


There are some excellent objects here…


http://www.flickr.com/photos/elissacorsini/2152112595/in/set-72157601070709853/

He looks pretty fit for his age (700)



(he looks pretty fit for his age – 730 yrs)


The photographer has been so kind to mention the unique object-ID used by the museum.

We can now go to the museum website to find out more …




The photographer has been so kind to provide the unique object ID of the museum.

We can go to the museum site to find out more ….

http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/70018085


More interestingly, other people have spontaneously included this image in a collaborative open group about “Middle ages in Europe”


http://www.flickr.com/groups/middle_age_in_europe/

(by the way, this group is just 1 of 100s of Flickr-groups related to the Middle Ages. Together these groups have 10,000s of

members)

http://www.flickr.com/search/groups/?w=all&q=medieval+europe


2.229 people from all over the world are members of this particular group!

They have organised themselves into

Capitani di venturas Attendenti en Compagnias





?





(this is about war lords & mercenaries in medieval Italy)

(I did not know that either before

making this presentation)



Collaboratively the members of this group have shared over 35,000 (!) photos of European

medieval objects between them, and the rest of the

world!

Some of them are really…

suprising!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/luigistrano/6164541445/

Others are quite…

medieval!

(this looks brutally medieval, I

wonder what kind of dark place that Castle of Milazzo

is)


This photo was taken on September 17, 2011 in Milazzo, Sicily, Italy


This map give us access to other photos that

were taken in (or around) Milazzo


Over 1,400 photos were taken by Flickr

members…

Unfortunately, the photos here are not

really useful to help us get an idea what kind of place the castle really

is…

But hey, we can also check out Google Maps !

(zooming in…)

(zooming in more…)

In Google Maps you can trigger a layer with photos taken by people all across the world

This is possible because users of another photo sharing service,

Panoramio, allow their photos to be visible in Google Maps. Thanks to them you and I can look around

Milazzo…

This image could well be the castle…

Thanks to the Panoramio volunteers we can get a pretty

good idea what the Dark Castle looks like

http://www.flickr.com/photos/elissacorsini/2163082112/in/photostream

So far for the castle..

Let’s go back to Jim’s favourite image

http://www.flickr.com/photos/elissacorsini/2163082112/

The photographer has been so kind to add tags to this photo.



This tagging is a form of cataloguing, done by the public, on their own initiative


Tagging connects this single photo to the rest of the world…

This tagging is a form of cataloguing, done by the public, on their own initiative

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/gothic/?page=5

505,385 images tagged “gothic” have been

shared by Flickr-users…


(on the KB site I only found ± 35)


Let’s look at this one...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/spikeybwoy/7250193520/

Medieval stained glass

from St. Martin’s cathedral in Ypres,

Belgium

http://www.flickr.com/photos/spikeybwoy/7250193520/

(Isn’t this beautiful? You probably wonder what the rest of the

church looks like…)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9tpV0airxU

We are lucky an altruistic person shot a

Youtube clip in the cathedral.

Thanks to him we can have a look around the

church.

Enough about stained glass…

Let’s go back to Jim & Nancy …

Just like in real life, they made some friends on Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/people/jimforest/contacts/?filter=&page=3

These are some of their 139 friends

http://www.flickr.com/people/jimforest/contacts/?filter=&page=3

Let’s check out “Lawrence OP”

http://www.flickr.com/people/paullew/

A priest from Kuala Lumpur .. interesting

http://www.flickr.com/people/paullew/

Lawrence is a priest from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia ..

Lawrence is also very much into medieval objects …

So far he posted 784 photos with “medieval” in the description

http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=35409814@N00&q=medieval#page=3

Because Jim & Lawrence are direct friends on Flickr, Jim gets automatic

notifications when Lawrence has uploaded new photos

Like this medieval statue for instance…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/paullew/6222458554/

Remember how I told you learing is about making connections, an exploration, a collage ?












If you ask me, this is learning

If you ask me, this is learning, all done without central authority or coordination!

And the question now is not how institutions like KB can compete against all this …

…but how we can help people like Jim & Nancy to explore and understand their world

And the question now is not how institutions like KB can compete against all this …

… thus to create and facilitate dialogue between people

… and between generations

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimforest/5511802582/in/set-72157627302719120

Thank you very much! (*)

Olaf Janssen

KB, the national library of the Netherlands

(*) and a big thanks to Michael Edson (@mpedson)

Director of Web and New Media Strategy of the Smithsonian Institution

This presentation builds upon hisAn outside-in look at the National WWII Museum

http://www.slideshare.net/edsonm/an-outsidein-look-at-the-national-wwii-museum

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Jim, Nancy & the Dutch national library - a story about 3 explorers