EMu, Collections Online, and the Adkin Diaries: Using existing
platforms for transcription. Carol Stevenson Collection Information
System Manager Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa 11th
Australasian EMu User Conference Sydney, 3-4 September 2013 Slide 2
Spent morning shepherding breeding ewes etc. Mustered the 2nd class
Waikanae hoggarts (these are now the best we have) + drafted out
105 of the 109 to go UR (North Block). Also mustered the (former)
1st class Waikanae (193) + drafted out 179 to go up to N. Blk with
the others. In evening rode down to see Maud helped her develop
some plates spent a lovely time with her shes a perfect darling.
http://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/theme.aspx?irn=4382
http://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/theme.aspx?irn=4382 Slide 3 Slide
4 Background George Leslie Adkin, 1888 - 1964 Farmer, photographer,
geologist, explorer, archaeologist, ethnologist. 1 man, 41 diaries,
59 years, Over 21000 days Thousands of negatives and prints, some
albums Initial deadline, launch of @life100yearsago twitter feed
part of WW100 project@life100yearsago WW100 Did everything
ourselves Figure out process (imaging, cropping, loading,
transcription guidelines) as we went Slide 5 Process Assess album
condition Photograph album pages, load as media assets to album
Crop pages to days, load as Media Assets (derivatives) Create
narrative for days Load day images to EMu day narrative Transcribe
Add associated subjects, people, places Add context to narrative
entries for month Some parts semi-automated, some completely
manual; some need no special skills, others do Slide 6 Framework
Using existing framework; EMu & Collections Online CIDOC CRM
for building and expressing semantic relationships Days are
conceptual entities, not physical Links to physical entities:
diaries, photographs, albums (Catalogue) Links to people, places,
topics (Thesaurus and Parties) All content managed in EMu and
delivered to Collections Online Slide 7 Narrative for Day Slide 8
Slide 9 Narrative Hierarchy Slide 10 Slide 11 Slide 12 Narrative
Associations Slide 13 Hierarchy links to Catalogue Slide 14
Catalogue - Media Asset Slide 15 Media Asset Hierarchy Slide 16
Slide 17 Slide 18 Slide 19 Slide 20 Existing framework: Cons No
crowdsourcing opportunity Huge amounts of data pushes current
visual design of Collections Online Hierarchies get very long, can
be slow in EMu Slide 21 Existing framework: Pros Cheap! Know how to
use it No set up Proved flexibility of system Full use of thesauri
etc Links into rest of the collections (this is the most important)
Existing audience Slide 22 Crowdsourcing Size of the project is
daunting, but the transcription could be manageable through
crowdsourcing The content is interesting: NZ history, early 20 th
Century courtship, farming, geology, religion, war, politics,
weather Horowhenua locals interested in local history, and one of
their famous sons History students and educators: Bring students
closer to primary material, work with cursive handwriting,
highlight the importance of accuracy in relation to data, personal
biography Learning history through a first hand account Slide 23
Platforms and complex data There are a number of existing online
platforms that look great (Zooniverse, FromThePage), but how to
deal with matching to our structure, vocabularies, authorities?
Could use automated text authority mining, but would need to then
match back to authorities and structure, and text doesnt include
concepts that require human understanding (e.g. courtship) Beyond
scope of crowdsourcing? But does that diminish the value of the
data? External platforms means lots of data and image handling
Closed crowdsourcing. Provide volunteers remote access to Emu, with
very cut down access Slide 24 Where to Cant do with existing
(human) resource Transcription only one part of the project,
richness comes form the linking of concepts, people etc Need to
figure what parts need to be crowdsourced, what cant Transcription
could enable the adding of contextual and semantic relationships
and links to other sources Options for automating the above Or,
with a focussed crowd and a finite project, maybe we dont need a
new platform, could provide training and use existing tools Make
data available for analysis, visualisation, research, fun Slide 25
In evening rode down to see Maud showed her some books but there
seemed to be a lack of sympathy between us + the evening was a
failure. http://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/theme.aspx?irn=4080
Slide 26 Twitter Narrative teasers are also Tweets Link to
Collections Online One of a number of 100 years ago accounts Feeds
into a group account @life100yearsago@life100yearsago Also tweet
images for days that have them Dead man tweeting: potential issues
of responding to comments etc Slide 27 Slide 28 Slide 29 Slide 30
What weve learnt So much content, so much data Our existing data
structure works really well Transcription only one part Context
needed, or at least useful, for the reader Enlivens the collection,
a step beyond just digitisation and transcription need to formalise
the project Slide 31 See Adkin diaries on Collections Online
@adkin_diary on Twitter @adkin_diary @life100yearsago on Twitter
@life100yearsago Slide 32
