Afternoon everyone,
Seeing the power of access in Trove Traces was great. Being able to see what the vast information available on trove is being used for, is great. Projects such as ‘knowthatproperty.com’ wouldn’t have existed if it wasn’t for the incredible accessibility that trove offers. But with accessibility, comes some downsides, for the content made trove data is as good or bad as the user intends. I think the freedom to use the data how you wish is important, it is just a shame there’s a minority of people using it in hateful ways.
Zooniverse was really interesting! I was intrigued by many of the crowdsourcing projects; it was hard to choose one to try out. I ended up going Science Gossip. Science Gossip is dedicated to annotating images found in scientific journals of the Victorian era. I found the process really simple and easy to do, while also intriguing. I’ve thought about what makes me compelled to put more time into a crowdsourcing project like Science Gossip, and personally I think I’ve got three main reasons for doing so. First is that I find it fun! Science gossip gave me a few intriguing images to annotate, and the curiosity of what the next image could be made me want to keep going. Second is the idea that I’m helping such a huge project, the idea that a small amount of effort on my part, combined with the effort of the ‘crowd’, can do something bigger than any project team could manage on their own is fantastic! Thirdly, the ease and accessibility of the website makes it compelling, it’s incredibly easy to be a part of it. I hope others found it compelling enough to try again, I know it has been for me.
As a 20-something, I’d like to think I’m fairly proficient when it comes to social media. That said, Twitter was the only major social media I didn’t have an account on. Not anymore. I quite enjoyed the twitter bots we looked at, particularly the New York Public Library Emoji Bot. Simple fun, while encouraging engagement with collections, what’s not to love.
Ok, that’s it from me, lets see how week 3 is.
Cheers,
Aiden
