Social Tagging on The Commons on Flickr: Comparing the Library of Congress with the Remaining Institutions

1. Social Tagging on The Commons on Flickr: Comparing the Library of Congress with the Remaining Institutions Edward Benoit, III School of Information Studies University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

2. The Commons on Flickr • Launched January 16, 2008 with Library of Congress (LoC) project • Objectives • “To increase access to publicly-held photography collections, and • To provide a way for the general public to contribute information and knowledge (Then watch what happens when they do!)” • 52 participating institutions

3. Flickr and Tagging Literature • Major projects • steve.museum project (Bearman & Trant, 2006; Trant 2006, 2009a, 2009b & 2009c) • LoCFlickrproject (Springer et al., 2008) • Nature of Tags (Stvila & Jörgensen, 2009 & 2010; Chung & Yoon, 2009; Roissa, 2010; and Nov, Naaman & Ye, 2010) • Methodological Metrics (Cox, Clough & Siersdorfer, 2011) • Case Studies (Gahan, 2010; and Garvin, 2009) • The Commons (Vaughan, 2010)

4. Research Questions • How do the image tags generated for the Library of Congress Flickr holdings compare to those of the remainder of The Commons on Flickr institutions? • What, if any, spelling error rate variation exists between the Library of Congress and the other institutions? • What, if any, compound tag rate variation exists between the Library of Congress and the other institutions?

5. Methodology • Images from 52 institutions split into two population groups: LoC and non-LoC • Tag extraction (Python script/API) • Total populations • LoC: 13,461 images with 191,201 tags (Average of 14 tags/image) and 45,897 unique tags • Non-LoC: 164,301 images with 1,032,732 tags (Average of 6 tags/image) and 90,141 unique tags

6. Methodology: Sampling • Confidence level = 95% • Confidence interval = +/- 1% • Required sample populations • LoC = 7,942 • Non-LoC = 8,679

7. Methodology: Data Analysis • Open Coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) • Coding Categories • Additional analysis: • Spelling errors • Compound tagging (multiple word tags)

8. Results Top 20 tags, LoC sample Top 20 tags, non-LoC sample

9. Results, con’t LoC sample percentage by category (n=7942)

10. Results, con’t Non-LoC sample percentage by category (n=8679)

11. Results, con’t Compound tag rates by sample population

12. Results, con’t Spelling error rates by sample population

13. Results, con’t Breakdown of compound tags by number of words

14. Results, con’t Distribution of compound tags by number of words

15. Discussion and Future Research • Conclusions • High degree of similarity across all analyzed areas • Low spelling error rates refute concern • Future research • 2nd level of coding • Temporal development of tags • User specific tracking

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17. Springer, M., Dulabahn, B., Michel, P., Natanso, B., Reser, D., Woodward, D., et al. (2008). For the common good: The library of congress flickr pilot project. Retrieved from http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/flickr_report_final.pdf. Stvilia, B., & Jörgensen, C. (2009). User-generated collection-level metadata in an online photo-sharing system. Library & Information Science Research, 31, 54-65. Stvilia, B., & Jörgensen, C. (2010). Member activities and quality of tags in a collection of historical photographs in Flickr. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 61(12), 2477-2489. Trant, J. (2006). Exploring the potential for social tagging and folksonomy in art museums: Proof of concept. New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia, 12(1), 83-105. Trant, J. (2009a). Tagging, folksonomy and art museums: Early experiments and ongoing research. Journal of Digital Information, 10(1). Retrieved from http://journals.tdl.org/jodi/article/view/270/277. Trant, J. (2009b). Tagging folksonomy and art museums: Results of steve.museum's research. Retrieved from http://conferece.archimuse.com/jtrants/stevemuseum_research_report_available. Trant, J. (2009c). Studying Social Tagging and Folksonomy: A Review and Framework. Journal of Digital Information, 10(1). Retrieved from http://journals.tdl.org/jodi/article/view/269/278. Vaughan, J. (2010). Insights into The Commons on Flickr. Libraries and the Academy, 10(2), 185-214.