Benefits of Crowdsourcing Projects for Libraries

Crowdsourcing can harness digital volunteers to transcribe, create, enhance and correct text, images and archives writes the National Library of Australia's Rose Holley in Crowdsourcing: How and Why Should Libraries Do It? D-Lib Magazine, March/April 2010. "Examples of crowdsourcing goals for libraries could be: getting users to mark the errors in our catalogues; rating the reliability of information/records; adding information to records; verifying name authority files; adding user created content to collections; creating e-books; correcting full text; transcribing handwritten records; and most especially describing items that we have not made accessible because they are not catalogued/described yet."

Holley identifies the following benefits of implementing crowdsourcing projects in libraries:

• Achieving goals the library would never have the time, financial or staff resource to achieve on its own.
• Achieving goals in a much faster timeframe than the library may be able to achieve if it worked on its own.
• Building new virtual communities and user groups.
• Actively involving and engaging the community with the library and its other users and collections.
• Utilising the knowledge, expertise and interest of the community.
• Improving the quality of data/resource (e.g. by text, or catalogue corrections), resulting in more accurate searching.
• Adding value to data (e.g. by addition of comments, tags, ratings, reviews).
• Making data discoverable in different ways for a more diverse audience (e.g. by tagging).
• Gaining first-hand insight on user desires and the answers to difficult questions by asking and then listening to the crowd.
• Demonstrating the value and relevance of the library in the community by the high level of public involvement.
• Strengthening and building trust and loyalty of the users to the library. Users do not feel taken advantage of because libraries are non-profit making.
• Encouraging a sense of public ownership and responsibility towards cultural heritage collections, through user's contributions and collaborations.

[JH]