The Impact of Web 2.0 on Archives

The impact of Web 2.0 on archives
Jane Stevenson, The Archives Hub
02/11/2010
Look-Here! Project workshop on Web 2.0

What does Web 2.0 mean for the archives profession?
introduction
the unknown
the personal and the professional
letting go
making the most of our environment
preservation issues
innovation
conclusion
02/11/2010

Some figures...
Pew Internet: http://www.rahmn.com/pew-study-shows-growth-in-use-of-online-social-networks-not-just-for-kids-anymore/
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August 2010
http://www.medicalbillingandcoding.org/facts-about-the-internet/
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The unknown
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A leap of faith?
“There were no formal usability studies.” (Case studies: blog)
“..colleagues strong-armed me into joining.” (Case studies: Facebook)
“[It] started as an experiment…it was on a whim that our Director of Online Strategy signed us up for an account.” (Case studies: Twitter)
02/11/2010

Joining the Web 2.0 world
Often a lack of preparation, more experimentation
Sometimes reverse-engineering business drivers to fit
What can be gained from embedding this into your strategy?
What can be gained from a spirit of adventure?
The impact of changing expectations
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An intellectual exercise?
Twitter for Museums: Strategies and Tactics for Success
“a 412-page hardback book, containing 25 practical, how-to articles and case studies from leading international museum professionals and a highly-experienced International Advisory Board”
"A Different Kind of Web: New Connections between Archives and Our Users with Web 2.0”
02/11/2010

Weighing it up
If you can do it quickly, then finding out whether it works by doing it *might* be more fruitful than discussion, debate, reports, background reading and attempting impact analysis before the event.
But think about what you are committing to:
A good blog requires regular blog posts
Building a following on Twitter requires regular tweets
Providing images on Flickr or videos on YouTube does not require regular effort, but IPR is an issue
02/11/2010

The personal and the professional
02/11/2010

“I have found that one of the most significant challenges with using Facebook is striking a balance between your own personal and private persona and the persona and role the individual plays as an information provider and advocate for their repository and its holdings via Facebook.” (Case study: Facebook)
02/11/2010

Informal approaches
Blending of professional and personal
Personality and informality is part of the image
What is appropriate?
What do we feel comfortable with?
Is it easier for ‘digital natives’?
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Letting go
02/11/2010

The issue of control
Control of...
the archive over time - preservation
the handling of the archive - access
the description of the archive – potential access
the sense of the archive
the reputation of the archive
02/11/2010

The values we hold dear...
Concerns of the archivist
Authority
Integrity
Reliability
Expertise
Reputation
Benefits of Web 2.0
More users
Added value
Greater access
Numerous contexts
Reputation
Networking
Professional support
Dialogue
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People power
Individual points of view matter
“By forgoing formal classification, tags enable a huge amount of user-produced organizational value, at vanishingly small cost.” (Clay Shirky)
“Each individual categorization scheme is worth less than a professional categorization scheme. But there are many, many more of them.” (Schachter)
02/11/2010

Crowd-sourcing
The “wisdom of crowds” may be controversial
The power of crowds is unarguable:
http://www.oldweather.org/classify
(...at least in theory)
Some data versus no data...?
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http://www.oldweather.org
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Making the most of our environment
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We want to:
Grow our audience
Diversify our audience
Show that archives are relevant and meaningful
Encourage active engagement
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So we need to:
Move from the passive to the active and inclusive
Understand our new/potential users
Take some risks
Let go a bit!
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Web 2.0 can help with
Democratising
Building networks
Professional support
Sharing
Making friends
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A recent UK study Higher Education in a Web 2.0 World, concludes that Web 2.0 has a profound effect on the behaviour of students, in particular encouraging a strong sense of communities of interest and a greater tendency to share and participate than previous generations. The report concludes that the “world they [the students] encounter in higher education has been constructed on a wholly different set of norms.”
Ann Hughes (Bellevue Consultancy), “Higher Education in a Web 2.0 World”. (2009) http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/publications/heweb20rptv1.pdf
02/11/2010

“Media that's targeted at you but doesn't include you may not be worth sitting still for”
Clay Shirky
02/11/2010

Blogs provide a new type of communication
DNA and social responsibility blog http://dnaandsocialresponsibility.blogspot.com/
PaxCat project for Peace Archives
http://commonwealarchives.wordpress.com/
Kew Trainee’s blog
http://www.kew.org/news/kew-blogs/introducing-the-new-archives-graduate-trainee.htm
02/11/2010

Twitter enables conversation & networking
02/11/2010

YouTube and Flickr access mass markets
University of Glasgow YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TgXVHinLwM&feature=related
National Maritime Museum Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalmaritimemuseum/
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But its not all a bed of roses...
02/11/2010

Some thorny issues?
Is it permanent?
Is it interoperable?
Is it transparent?
Is it using standards?
Is it open?
It is trustworthy?
And how on earth do we measure its impact?
02/11/2010

Preservation Issues
02/11/2010

Preservation
Who is responsible? What should be preserved?
Can we address preservation early in the life-cycle?
Might scholars have a role in this (around their area of research)?
What about the importance of context?
Technically, many Web 2.0 channels are not difficult to archive, at least in a basic sense (LoC – Twitter)
02/11/2010

Preservation
http://archivingsocialmedia.org/
Most people don’t pay attention to what software and hardware are doing with their stuff (Chris Prom)
So who is archiving their social media content at the moment....?
02/11/2010

...CocaCola!
http://www.hanzoarchives.com/
Hanzo provides “internet memory” and “real-time capture and playback” of your websites. Our superior crawl and archiving technology can capture your entire site with Flash and video streaming media. We lead in the provision of webarchives using state of the art software to capture your online presence on Social Web platforms and can reliably playback archived content in their native form.
02/11/2010

Innovation
Innovation
02/11/2010

Innovation
Leading edge or trailing edge?
Does the ‘mainstream’ of archivists have the enthusiasm, have the desire, to engage with Web 2.0?
Is it a question of time? Is it a question of priorities?
02/11/2010

Some philosophical musings
Traditionally we organise archives in advance of the researcher using them
If a user wants something that hasn’t been described/categorised/indexed in the way they are thinking about it then...?
The archive is what it is, however we choose to describe it. Or does the naming of the world change it?
Will differences in expression change the nature of archives?
02/11/2010

Where to now?
The internet will be a thriving, low-cost network of billions of devices by 2020, says a major survey of leading technology thinkers.
The Pew report on the future internet surveyed 742 experts in the fields of computing, politics and business.
More than half of respondents had a positive vision of the net's future but 46% had serious reservations.
Almost 60% said that a counter culture of Luddites would emerge, some resorting to violence.
Pew Report from 2006: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5370688.stm
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Conclusion: Web 2.0 is a mindset
02/11/2010

Useful Stuff
Pew Internet: http://pewresearch.org/
Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies: 15 mind blowing facts about the internet http://www.medicalbillingandcoding.org/facts-about-the-internet/
Twitter for Museums http://www.museumsetc.com/?p=1501
A Different Kind of Web: New Connections between Archives and Our Users with Web 2.0 (ed. Kate Theimer…coming soon)
twitter.com/archiveshub
archiveshub/blog/
02/11/2010

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The Impact of Web 2.0 on Archives

by Jane Stevenson

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