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| 1963-0193_03, Texas State University Flickr Commons. The comment reads "Gosh I remember that style of Coke machine." |
Most people have heard about
crowdsourcing on social media, but what about on institutional websites? When
the Library of Congress put come of their photographs on Flickr back in 2008,
many congratulated LoC for beginning to digitalize their materials (Springer,
2008). Little did they know all the images shared had already been digitized
and made available on the Library of Congress’s website (Springer, 2008).
Clearly in 2008 few people were going to institutional websites for images. The
question is, is this still true? Are users more likely to comment on social
media outlets created by institutions housing cultural heritage or has the
passing of time increased users awareness of the interactive nature of
institutional websites? This blog post seeks to compare user comments on
photographs on institutional websites to those found on social media outlets.
Initially
the comparison was going to be between the Library of Congress Flickr Commons
site and the Mystery Corner section of the Maine Memory Network, a digital
library created by the Maine Historical Society. In the Mystery Corner a
selection of 84 “mysteries” are presented, each with their complete metadata
and a specific question that need to be answered. Users are asked to provide
information in the form of comments attached to the images. Research on the
internet revealed that the Mystery Corner went online in September, 2015 (Maine
Historical Society [MHS], 2015c). In
comparison the Library of Congress joined/created the Flickr Commons in 2008.
The difference between 2 months and seven years was deemed to be too larger to
be ignored. Luckily two other participants in the Flickr Commons had joined
recently. The American Aviation Historical Society (AAHS) joined in August 2015
and the Texas State University Library Collection (SWTSU) joined in April 2015
(American Aviation Historical Society, 2015; Texas State University Archives,
2015). One advantage of using AAHS and SWTSU, besides their recent start, is
that niche nature of the subject matter, while not the same as the MMN, might
more accurately portray the types of people who would comment on the images at
the MMN than the more famous Library of Congress.
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| McCannell Store and Post Office, Princeton, ca 1930, Princeton Public Library, Maine Memory Network. The question posed is "Who's the kid in the store?" and the comment reads "James Edgar is my grandfather and Neil is my great grandfather!" |
As of December 3, 2015 the MMN Mystery Corner had six comments on three photos and one letter out of a total of 84 items, or 7.14 percent (MHS, 2015b). None of the four items were counted as solved mysteries. For the rest of the calculations I will be omitting the letter, to better compare the commenting on photographs. As of November 24, 2015 the AAHS site on Flickr has 3 comments on three photos out of a total of 340 images, or 0.83 percent. To have the same percent of commented photos AAHS would have to increase the number of commented photos to 20.7 or almost 600%, making comparisons between the numbers of comments difficult. In terms of correcting for length of time available, by reducing AAHS from 83 days to 74, the percent of photographs with comments would drop to 0.786 percent, which puts even farther behind the Mystery Corner. In conclusion, the difference in the percent of photographs with comments is not due to the difference in the length of time available to comment.
The comments were sorted based on subject into 5 categories
with some images residing in multiple categories. The categories are
informative, cited informative, personal, question, and reply. All of the AAHS
photos were informative or cited informative while only 60% of the photographs
of the Mystery Corner were. On the other hand the average number of words of
the Mystery Corner comments was 35.8 words while AAHS was 35.3 words. AAHS had
a super contributor who contributed 66% of all comments, aka two, while the
Mystery Corner’s largest contributor only contributed 40% of all comments, aka
two. It should be mentioned that while both super contributors did post informative
comments neither including citing in any of their posts. AAHS’s super
contributor comments were almost identical and were in the same album and on
the same day. The Mystery Corner had one conversation, or multiple comment
image, while the AAHS had zero. It is also interesting to note that all five
commenters on the Mystery Corner are referred to by names, presumably theirs,
while the two contributors on AAHS have descriptive names as TVL1970 and
airmanisr2.
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| XB-51 Rear, American Aviation Historical Society Flickr Commons. The comment reads "Note the tail of the very rare (only 21 were built, and none exist today) Martin P4M Mercator captured in the background." |
As
of December 5, 2015 the general MMN comments consist of 29 comments on 25
photographs, lithograph, a newspaper clipping, an oil painting, and a slideshow
out of a total of over 45,000 items (MHS, 2015a). Again, from here on out I
will only be doing calculations using the photographs. The number of images is
approximately 40,501 of which most of are photographs, making the percent of
commented at least 0.0617 percent. As of December 3, 2015 the SWTSU Flickr site
had five comments on 5 photos out of a total of 4762 images, or 0.1050 percent.
To have the same percent of commented photos MMN would have to increase the
number of commented photos by 18 or 77%, a relatively small number compared to
the above. In terms of correcting for length of time available, by reducing
SWTSU from 5 comments over 7 months to 2.8 over 4 months, the percent of photographs
with comments would drop to 0.0599 percent, which puts it 0.08 comment behind
or 2.8 percent behind MMN. In other words the difference in the percent of
commented photographs can be explained by the difference in the length of time
the photographs have been available for commenting.
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| 9042-F_34, Texas State University Flickr Commons. The comment reads "Awesome capture!" |
The comments were sorted into 7 categories based on subject
with some photographs residing in multiple categories. The categories are
informative, cited informative, personal, question, reply, correction and
positive. None of the SWTSU were informative, cited or not, while 58% of the
photographs of the MMN were. The average number of words for MMN was 59.7
words, or 32.8 after removing the outliers of 323 and 340, while SWTSU had only
5.8 words. SWSTU had a super contributor who contributed 60% of all comments,
aka 3, while MMN had three super contributors who each contributed 8 percent of
all comments, aka 2. It is important to note that one of MMN super contributors
is Maine Memory Administrator who only replied to comments. It is important to
note that 4/5 of SWTSU commented photos were contained in albums of
unidentified negatives. Those albums were also had the most favorites as a
fraction of the number of photographs present. MMN had two conversations, while
SWTSU had zero. It is interesting to note that while most of the MMN commenters
are known by names, presumably theirs, some do have descriptive names like
assignment writing australia, A Kid, S1AMER, and sheshells59. SWTSU on the
other hand descriptive names for all three commenters; jamica1, phenchua92 and
Idakoos Store.
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| Boothbay Center School graduates, ca. 1895, Boothbay Region Historical Society, Maine Memory Network. The comment added to this photo was 323 words long and so has not been provided. |
So what does it all mean?
From
the Mystery Corner and AAHS match up, representing small, less than 500 images,
collections over a short period of time, I found that institutional comments
are more numerous, as a percentage of the total number of images, than social
media comments over the same period of time. I found that the comments are
likely to be equal in average number of words used, and both have over 50%
chance of an informative comment. Institutional comments are more likely to
create conversations, though only slightly.
From
the MMN and SWSTU match up, representing larger, over 1000 images, collections
over a longer time, I found that institutional and social media comments occur
at the same percentage of the total number of images over the same period of
time. I found that institutional comments were likely to be longer by a
significant amount over social media comments, and would also be more likely to
have informative comments. Institutional comments only create conversations
when the institution responds to user comments.
Comparing
the Mystery Corner and MMN it is be important to note that only the larger MMN
had examples of corrections or positive feedback. While the Mystery Corner did
have five responses none of them answered the specific question asked as so the
mysteries remain unsolved. On the other hand both groups had a similar
percentage of informative comments and a similar average word count, after outliers
had been removed.
Comparing
AAHS and SWTSU it is important to note that the titles of AAHS actually reflect
the content of the photographs while SWSTU has titles like 9042-F_34 as seen above. Generalizations about the informative nature of
social media comments should be avoided, since AAHS had only informative
comments while SWSTU had none. Both sites had comments on multiple photographs
in a single album and by a single person.
While there are some conclusions
that can be drawn as discussed above, they should be made with extreme caution
and preferably after more research has been done. The difference in sizes
between MMN and SWTSU could well be causing some, if not all of the difference
in comments, let alone the differences in subject matter and the presentation
of the photographs. Future research should try to compare institutions with
similar subjects, over longer periods of time, and consider using other social
media sites.
Works
Cited
American Aviation Historical
Society. (2015, August). American Aviation
Historical Society. Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/aahs_archives/
Maine Historical Society. (2015a). Maine
Memory Network. Retrieved from https://www.mainememory.net/
Maine Historical Society. (2015b). Mystery
Corner. Retrieved from https://www.mainememory.net/mystery
Maine Historical Society. (2015c). Who? What? When? Where? Help! Mystery Photo
Night in Rangeley. Retrieved from http://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/event/who-what-when-where-help-mystery-photo-night-in-rangeley/
Springer, M., Dulabahn, B., Michel, P.,
Natanson, B., Reser, D. W., Ellison, N. B., … Woodward, D. (2008). For the common good: The Library of Congress
Flickr pilot project. Washington, DC: Library of Congress, Prints and
Photographs Division.
Texas State University Archives. (2015,
April). Texas State University Flickr Commons. Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/txstate-library/
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