RunCoCo Workshop, 3rd November 2010
Thanks to RunCoCo for organising a very helpful workshop at Leeds yesterday. The workshop was entitled Community Collection Online: Sustainability and Business Models. It brought together people who are currently working on, or wish to set-up, community engagement projects like Strandlines; also digitisation and crowd sourcing initiatives. Projects discussed included AddressingHistory, PaxCat, The Great War Archive, Welsh Voices of the Great War Online, Visualising China, Our Stories, LIFE-Share, and VADS.
I was particularly enthused by Kate Lindsay’s discussion of how free, web-based services might contribute to a project’s sustainability. She particularly focussed on how projects might use Flickr to ensure that project sites remain lively. Institutes and organisations who currently use Flickr to this end include the Library of Congress, the Tate, the National Archives UK, the Smithsonian, and the Museum of Modern Art. Inspired by this, I will be setting up a Strandlines Flickr group shortly; also looking for Strand related pictures on Flickr, and asking photographers to add them to the Strandlines group. I liked the idea of a Flickr site as a ‘twenty-first century museum’ or ‘cabinet of curiousities’. The same terms might be used to describe the Strandlines image gallery – but perhaps its story gallery too. It was very interesting to hear that there does not seem to be available an internet resource like Flickr for texts: where people can add life stories; place them in groups; and tag them so that others can find them.
I was interested too in Kate’s description of the use of ‘road shows’ when gathering materials for The Great War Archive. Communities bring their images and objects to these events for scanning – so that they can be added to websites. I feel that the Strandlines team could organise a few of these once we have determined the extent to which people have kept Strand related objects and images. If they do not have such things, this will of course be an interesting finding in itself – suggestive of attitudes towards the local area. Gethin Matthews, from Welsh Voices of the Great War Online, discussed how to involve local libraries in training communities to scan images. The Strandlines team would very much like to involve Westminster Archives, our project partner, in such an initiative; considering the short time span of the project, it is important that we help the external communities to develop digitisation skills.
One major difference between Strandlines and The Great War Archive, of course, is that the former does not build upon a pre-existing community of enthusiasts. The Strand is a place where different communities congregate, yet there seems to be little identification or even significant interest in the area as a whole. The Strand does not, for instance, have a local history group devoted to its exploration. It is our hope, that Strandlines might encourage the emergence of such a group. The site increasingly shows that the Strand has a fascinating history – as well as a rich and various present.
Further helpful ideas were suggested by the presentation Alastair Dunning (JISC) gave, which involved a discussion of the methods used by the organisers of eBird – a resource which brings together scientists researching ornithology with bird spotting enthusiasts. Kiosks with the website on it, onto which people could upload materials, were set up in bird spotting sanctuaries. My feeling is that Strandlines could benefit from a similar kind of enterprise: setting up kiosks in hotels, at King’s College, and in Somerset House for instance. This would be an informative facility for tourists, as well as an accessible and entertaining way in which people could learn more about, and engage with, the local area.
Further ideas discussed at the workshop, that I found of particular use include:
- The importance of using Twitter creatively. I particularly enjoyed The Great War Archive’s ‘on this day’ tweets. The 19th Century Newspapers resource and the Burney Collection might help Strandlines to tweet about historic day-to-day happenings on the Strand.
- The alumni might be able to help with funding.
- The need to encourage our host institution to use Strandlines: whether in BA and MA courses, lectures, websites, events, kiosks, etc. My feeling is that Strandlines could attract new students to the College.
- The need to preserve all materials gathered in several formats, in different places. Lisa Greenhaigh from Our Stories emphasised that not enough time is devoted into preserving the materials added to on-line community archives.
Thanks again to the RunCoCo team for a very informative, and enjoyable day in Leeds.