Conversations or evidence – an analysis of responses from members of the public to an invitation to submit their comments about State Library of Victoria images available over the Web
VALA 2008 CONCURRENT SESSION 4: Engaging Communities
Tuesday 5 February 2008, 15:10 – 15:40
Persistent URL: http://www.vala.org.au/vala2008-proceedings/vala2008-session-4-beaumont
Anne Beaumont
Digital Systems Analyst, State Library of Victoria
http://www.slv.vic.gov.au
Kelly Gardiner
Web Services Manager, State Library of Victoria
http://www.slv.vic.gov.au
Stuart Flanagan
Senior Web Applications Developer, State Library of Victoria
http://www.slv.vic.gov.au
Please tag your comments, tweets, and blob posts about this session: #VALA2008
Abstract
In late 2005 the State Library of Victoria made a small change to the page on which its images were displayed over the Web. It added a link to a form which allowed the public to send comments on an image to the State Library of Victoria. The size and variety of the response was totally unexpected. As a result of this and because of a growing awareness of the discussion about Library 2.0, the development of ‘communities’, and a need to devise a way to manage the responses in line with library values in regard to privacy, authenticity of information and engagement a project was devised to analyse the responses. Results of this analysis are presented with example comments followed by a brief discussion on future plans for the project.