Stuart Lee

The Great War Archive: Oxford University’s Community Collection
Dr Stuart D Lee
Reader in E-learning and Digital Libraries
Director, Computing Services
Senior Lecturer, English Faculty
Merton College
University of Oxford
[email_address]
http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit

To start
Cuts
Impact

http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit The First World War Poetry Digital Archive 1996-1998 £50k 2006-2008 £450k

http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit Web 2.0 = new audiences and means of dissemination RSS

http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit Virtual Worlds (e.g. SecondLife)

A ‘typical’ digitization project
6,000+ digital images of rare/unique items related to the poets of WW1
Several hundred historical photographs, audio/video clips
Selected by experts, curators, etc; digitised and catalogued professionally
Catalogued and presented for searching and browsing

Digital Imaging: A Practical Handbook (2000)
Project Lifecycle
Instigation of Project
Assess and Select Material for Digitization
Prepare Material
Digitize
Edit
Deliver
Support
http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit Increase Access Meet Strategic Goals Preservation

http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit ContentDM

Changes http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit

Some figures
15m people in London each day
c. 85% own a digital camera or smartphone = 12.75m
If only 1% used their camera, and took 1 picture = 127,500 images TODAY
20 minutes to catalogue an image using traditional levels of metadata
42,500 hours
21 years for one person

http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit ‘ The Factory made possible mass production, mass consumption … The web could make innovation and creativity a mass activity that engages millions … [future generations] will expect and welcome opportunities to participate, collaborate, share and work with their peers.’ C. Leadbeater W e-Think (www.wethinkthebook.net)

‘ Community Collections’
Online collections created by public communities for public communities
The public: - contributes material AND digitizes - agrees copyright - catalogues material

Ran from March to June 2008

Contribution: process

http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit The Great War Archive: Submission Website Welcome and instructions Simple online submissions process No need for registration

Contributors asked to agree to basic terms & conditions

Enter contact details Not required to register. Can request to be kept anonymous.

Submission choice Attach files / enter a story.

E.g. Attach file

Enter basic metadata

Review submission

Submission complete ‘ Thank you’ message Includes notice of when the collection goes Live, link to submit some more & a feedback form

Cataloguer & Administrator: To check items for their validity. To correct or add to the metadata To flag items of particular interest/value

Great War Archive: Submission Days

http://runcoco.oucs.ox.ac.uk/
5 members of staff - 2 to digitize material (i.e. photograph and scan) - 2 to help catalogue and upload material - 1 to deal with the public as they come in
2-3 computers, 1 flatbed scanner, 2 cameras (2 megapixels), tripods, flat surface, audio recorder

Public contributors upload 5,900 digital objects to the website Project uploads 600 digital objects from submissions days 3,000 images in the Flickr Group since July 2008 600 Great War Archive: What We Received

Gunner James Ryan

Total War

Disappearing History

http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit Traditional Community Collection £40 per image $60 £3.50 per image $5.25

Digital Imaging: A Practical Handbook (2000)
Project Lifecycle

Free software - CoCoCo: “ collect and catalogue content contributed by website users ”
Run collection
Export collection to web delivery system
Freely available, Open source http://runcoco.oucs.ox.ac.uk/resources/cococo.html
[email_address] http://runcoco.oucs.ox.ac.uk/

Project Woruldhord
projects.oucs.ox.ac.uk/woruldhord
A community collection based on the Anglo-Saxons

1st July - 14th October
No submission days just online
Not much publicly owned material from the period
Concentrate more on ‘teaching resources’
Willing to accept - photographs, audio, video, presentations, handouts, reading lists, pre-prints, book chapters, works inspired by the period etc

Croydon Sittingbourne These items are from Project Woruldhord (projects.oucs.ox.ac.uk/woruldhord) © Croydon Museum © Anglo-Saxon CSI: Sittingbourne

Results
400 individual contributions so far
could be one image, one handout, or 1-200 images
estimate around 3,500 ‘objects’ (c. £2 per object)

Next Steps
Launch Woruldhord in December/January
Further modification to CoCoCo software
Running a small Great War Archive in Germany (Spring, 2011) then possibly France
Large global initiative prior to 2014

Observations
Communities and existing networks are the key
Keep it focused, concentrate attention on one ‘big’ thing
Do not ‘overthink’ the problem
The public know more than we think
A cost effective way to create a mass of digital objects and engage the public
Reassess what is important?

To conclude
Cuts
Impact

The Great War Archive: Oxford University’s Community Collection
Dr Stuart D Lee
Reader in E-learning and Digital Libraries
Director, Computing Services
Senior Lecturer, English Faculty
Merton College
University of Oxford
[email_address]
http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit http://runcoco.oucs.ox.ac.uk/

Stuart Lee

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