Theory and Practice of Building Digital Public Spaces

The Theory and Practice of Digital Public Spaces

Alex Carruthers

2/10/2015

Info-Nexus

February 6, 2015

Outline

• Digital public spaces in the context of

Edmonton Public Library (EPL)

• Digital public spaces for other cultural

organizations

• Building EPL’s first digital public space

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EPL Context

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Internship

Digital Public Spaces Intern

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• Engage in research and community consultation

to define Digital Public Spaces

• Determine potential roles for EPL

• Investigate, recommend, and help plan EPL’s

next steps in developing digital projects that

meet community-defined needs

• Investigate the role of EPL in supporting Open

Data initiatives

Business Plan Goals

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Digital Public Spaces

Research

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Goals of the Report:

• To meaningfully define the term “digital public space”

for EPL

• To identify trends in the development or improvement

of digital public spaces in libraries or other cultural

institutions

• To investigate specific digital public space projects in

more detail, learning about their successes,

challenges and technical and administrative

infrastructure

• To recommend service directions for EPL

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Who else is talking about digital public spaces?

• BBC Archives

• The Creative Exchange

• Future Everything 2013

• Legal and technological implications

• Why and how do libraries, museums, archives collect, store and make accessible cultural history?

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What is a digital public space?

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Digital public spaces

• Are open and interoperable in as many ways as possible

“Open means anyone can freely access, use, modify, and share for any purpose (subject, at most, to requirements that preserve provenance and openness).” – Open Definition

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Who’s working on it?

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Digital Public Library of America

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http://dp.la/info/developers/

Rijksmuseum

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https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/rijksstudio

NYPL Labs – What’s on the Menu

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~ 1,327,975 dishes

transcribed from

17,541 menus since 2012

Menus are reviewed and

mapped

http://menus.nypl.org/

“Far from being an instrument which enables us to ultimately better deliver content to end users, crowdsourcing is the best way to actually engage our users in the fundamental reason that these digital collections exist in the first place.”

-Trevor Owens, Digital Archivist, Library of Congress

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Digital public spaces

• Can be created in collaboration with the

public from the very beginning

• Can fulfill the goal of facilitating

meaningful engagement with

collections

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Building EPL’s First Digital

Public Space

Celebrating Local Music

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How do we build one?

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1. Successful projects have tended to be adaptations of

experiments with existing collections of digital content

2. Successful projects have tended to appeal to an

identifiable community or enthusiast group

3. Trained and dedicated staff are required to maintain the

project

Building a digital collection

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• Unconference March 22, 2014

• Invited members of the local music

community

• 50 participants

• Participant-

driven meeting

What is an unconference?

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SOMETHING

NEW!

SOMETHING

NEW!

The day itself:

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Regularly

changing

content!

Interactive site

that reaches

out to the

community

Curated by the

community

Multimedia content: audio,

video, stories, images…

Celebrate

history AND

support the

current scene

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Contemporary Local Music Collection

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• Edmonton music from the last

5 years in any genre

• Selected by small jury of

interested local music fans

• 100 new contributions a year

• One time honorarium for

musicians

• Music available for download

and streaming

• Direct traffic to options to

purchase content

Local Music History Archive• Crowdsourced

audio, video, images and stories related to local music history

• For streaming and download when relevant

• Audio content included in playlist tool

• History preserved and made accessible

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gdao.org

Legal Context

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Technical Development

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Hackathon Architecture

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Rabble and MUSICat

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musicat.co

Accessibility

• Web Content Accessibly Standards

Archiving

• Support from the University of Alberta Digital Initiatives Department

Partnerships

• Dead Venues Project

• Documentaries and Maps

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Timeline

• Call for submissions – Feb 2 – 23

• Jury review – Feb 23 – Mar 16

• Transcription tool development – March

• Usability/beta testing – March/April

• Launch Spring 2015

• Concerts in Summer and Fall 2015

• Summer Digitization Events

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Digital Publics

• Digital public is limited; digital divide exists along lines of race, class and gender

• Digital literacy support is key• EPL offers courses for beginners all the way up

to game design and robotics

• Opportunity to integrate resources like Treehouse and Lynda.com

• New publics are emerging and are open to collaboration

• Sharing, community engagement and supporting lifelong learning

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Questions?

Thank you!

Contact

@acecarruthers

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