Wisdom of the Crowd(sourced content) – Library and Archives Canada’s New Crowdsourcing Platform

Wisdom of the Crowd(sourced content)

Lightning Talk

Michael Smith, Library and Archives Canada

At long last, Library and Archives Canada (LAC) is following in the footsteps of other institutions such as the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and the National Archives (UK) in developing a platform for the public to transcribe, tag and translate manuscripts and photos from our diverse collection.

This talk will discuss the reasons behind our decision to build a crowdsourcing platform and the early success of our two crowdsourcing pilot projects. It will also detail the ways in which crowdsourcing platforms from other organizations influenced our design and how we are ensuring that the content is accessible and discoverable via LAC’s new collection search platform. Challenges such as addressing the Government of Canada’s Official Languages policy and ensuring the clear segregation of authoritative data vs. crowdsourced data will also be discussed along with a brief overview of user testing results and lessons learned.