[Web4lib] The Art Museum Social Tagging Project

[Walter McGinnis]

Hi Ranti,

Horowhenua Library Trust in Levin, New Zealand and Katipo  
Communications has developed a piece of open source software called  
Kete for more collaborative digital archiving for the Horowhenua  
community.  It includes tagging any item in the archive among other  
things.  You can find an example of items tagged "anzac day" here:

http://horowhenua.kete.net.nz/site/all/images/tagged/62/

Although a large portion of the content on the site is based on  
importing existing historical collections' data, such as the Adopt an  
Anzac Project (http://horowhenua.kete.net.nz/adopt_an_anzac/all/ 
topics/), anyone can register and get involved in the larger site.   
HLT has used the site to get specific community groups excited and  
involved around projects that relate to their interests.

You'll also notice that besides tagging, we allow for adding related  
links between any topic and any other item.  This allows for another  
way of collaboratively grouping items since any user can add a link.

We also provide for the community to regulate itself with a flagging  
mechanism for any item.  Community members can mark a piece of  
content as inaccurate, inappropriate, a duplicate, etc. and the item  
in question will be rolled back to an uncontested version if one  
exists and have a "review pending" message added.  A moderator is  
emailed to take appropriate action.

Outside of HLT, several other organizations are now looking at using  
Kete to bring their resources online to the communities they  
represent.  Kete has a strong foundation based on Ruby on Rails, OAI  
Dublin Core XML, and the Zebra search software.  Lots of exciting  
plans in the works.

Cheers,
Walter McGinnis
Kete Lead Programmer
http://blog.kete.net.nz/
http://blog.katipo.co.nz

On May 26, 2007, at 6:18 AM, Junus, Ranti wrote:

> There are times when I think social tagging somehow makes more  
> sense for
> images and this is one of them.
>
> Quote from their site:
> "Steve" is a collaborative research project exploring the potential  
> for
> user-generated descriptions of the subjects of works of art to improve
> access to museum collections and encourage engagement with cultural
> content.
> http://steve.museum/
>
> So, I wonder if there are any libraries who already implemented
> something like this for their digital (image) collections?
>
>
> thanks,
> ranti.
> --
> Ranti Junus - Web Services/Electronic Resources
>  100 Main Library W441
>  Michigan State University
>  East Lansing, MI 48824, USA
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