�ݺ�ߣ

Design
?for
?crowdsourcing
Recent
?projects
?at
?the
?New
?York
?Public
?Library

Presented
?to
?the
?Powerhouse
?Museum
8
?December
?2011

Michael
?Lascarides
Senior
?Manager
?for
?Web
?IniFaFves,
?NYPL
@mlascarides
?/
?@nypl
michaellascarides@nypl.org

Monday, December 12, 2011

Map
?Warper
maps.nypl.org
2009

[35:00]

(sadly,
?not
?easy)


Gaze:eers
?&
?directories


Most importantly, locational data is an important pivot point for a lot of other
projects.

What��s
?On
?The
?Menu?
menus.nypl.org
2011

40:00

Buried
?treasure
?
(literally)


Consider
?the
?oyster��


Strangely enough, we?ve gotten a lot of attention for simply putting these canned searches here on the
right.

Food
?enthusiasts,
?chefs,
?
librarians,
?writers,
?
random
?obsessives��
?


School for the deaf in Texas.

Over
?58,000
?visitors
?in
?4.5
?mos.

10,000+
?menus
?fully
?transcribed

600,000+
?dishes
?transcribed

We could have done more but we ran out of digitized
menus!

We could have done more but we ran out of digitized
menus!

Next:
?Linked
?Data


Rules
?for
?good
crowdsourcing
?design


��Choose
?your
?parents
?wisely��

Start with great raw
materials!

Engage
?on
?an
?emoFonal
?level
?
through
?stories

Expose the stories behind a collection, and make them relatable to users. Use feedback to create narratives (as in Old Weather, where every entry moves the ship along on a map).

Appeal
?to
?the
?user��s
beer
?nature

We have found that participation increases dramatically when we frame our calls for participation in terms of helping the library. Frame it the same way you would any other volunteer opportunity, even
if it��s one that only lasts 10 seconds.

DemysFfy
?the
?purpose

People want to participate in projects they understand. Practice your ��elevator pitch�� for your project: describe it in the time it takes to go ten floors in an elevator with someone. People don��t get excited
about typing, but they will get excited about participating in the building of an important historical research tool.

Make
?the
?task
?
as
?small
?as
?possible

This one can��t be stressed enough: pay extremely close attention to exactly what action you��re asking people to do, and make the task as discrete as possible. If the project involves transcribing a

page of text, ask participants to transcribe a sentence, or a line, or even a single word. Complicated tasks with multiple steps run the risk of ending half-complete.

Encourage
?conFnuaFon

Once the tasks are broken down into small enough pieces, completing one will feel like a bite-size morsel that leaves the participant wanting more. Thank the participant immediately for their

contribution, then immediately ask them to contribute a bit more.

Lower
?the
?barriers
?to
?
parFcipaFon

If at all possible, allow immediate and anonymous contribution. It can definitely be useful to get users to register and sign in, so that you can reward top participants and track participation. But a sign-
up page can be a barrier that may discourage the casual participant. A far better approach is to allow immediate participation without registration, and passively communicate the benefits of signing up
as the user proceeds.

Encourage
?a
?feeling
?of
?shared
?
ownership

While critics of Wikipedia claim that anyone can enter false or vandalizing information, it��s heartening that the converse is true: anyone can also correct and repair bad information. By allowing other
users to proofread and correct what��s previously been entered, you give participants a sense of pride that this is their ��neighborhood�� and it should be looked after.

Show
?results
?immediately

This is another critical one. When you��re collecting input from participants, don��t send the fruits of their labor off to some unseen holding queue; instead, post the result proudly as completed. In our

��What��s on the Menu?�� project, every time a patron transcribes a dish off of a menu, the name of that dish becomes a clickable link leading to a page showing all menus where that dish appears and

facts about it (earliest and latest appearances, high and low prices, etc.). If the dish was incorrectly transcribed, it can always be corrected later. For us, it was far more important to treat the contribution

as official the moment it was transcribed, allowing users to see their transcription become part of the research tool instantly.

Place
?the
?project
?in
?context

Don��t try to be the center of the universe; link to other reference sources. On the NYPL��s menu project, at the moment a new dish is transcribed, a page for that dish is created which in turn contains
links to canned searches on other sites from Google to MenuPages to the library catalog, encouraging immediate exploration elsewhere.

Play
?games

The short ��participate, get feedback�� cycle we��re describing here lends itself extremely well to game dynamics. If possible, keep score, and give top participants some sort of public recognition.

Reward
?e?ort

If it��s possible to keep track of who��s participating, give rewards. Hold a special reception with refreshments in your library, and only give the invitation to online participants. If you��re not tracking

the identity of participants, make sure the messaging you display is loaded with gratitude.

Report
?results

Let users know how the project is progressing. If the goal is to transcribe a collection, show how many documents are in that collection, and how many have been completed. Show progress bars to
indicate how far you��ve come and how far there is to go. If you��re using public participation to create a research tool, use a blog or social media to report how that research has been used by historians,
authors or other researchers and ink to their work.

Share
?the
?fruits
?of
?labor

When content is publicly created, make the resulting product publicly available. If the goal is to create a database of some sort, make the entire database available for download, or expose data with

an Application Programming Interface (API) and encourage anyone to create ��mashups�� of your data. Promote any works that people derive from your data on your site or blog, and encourage others to

do the same.

Build
?a
?community

Getting patrons involved in a project is an ideal opportunity to unite people with a common interest around your collections. Use social networks, a blog with comments, and/or an online forum to

build a conversation with the people who are you top users. Listen to feedback, take suggestions, and point out interesting findings.

Thank
?you!
Presented
?to
?the
?Powerhouse
?Museum
8
?December
?2011

Michael
?Lascarides
Senior
?Manager
?for
?Web
?IniFaFves,
?NYPL
@mlascarides
?/
?@nypl
michaellascarides@nypl.org


�ݺ�ߣ

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