All the World's a Library: Produsage and User-Led Curation (ARLIS 2008 Keynote)

c r e a t i v e n d u s t r i e si

creativeindustries.qut.com

All the World’s a Library: Produsage and User-Led Curation

Dr Axel BrunsCreative Industries Faculty

Queensland University of Technology

http://produsage.org/



User-Led Content Production‒ emerging in various domains:

• open source software development• online publishing:

∘ blogs∘ open news – e.g. Slashdot, Indymedia,

OhmyNews• knowledge management

∘ wikis – e.g. Wikipedia∘ social bookmarking – e.g. del.icio.us, digg∘ geotagging – e.g. Google Earth, Frappr

• multi-user gaming:∘ e.g. The Sims, Everquest, Second Life,

Spore• creative practice

∘ e.g. Flickr, ccMixter, YouTube, Jumpcut• reviews and social shopping

∘ e.g. Epinions, IgoUgo

image by stabilo-boss



‒ decline of the traditional value chain:

producer distributor consumer

(producer advised by consumer distributor consumer)

(customer-made ideas producer distributor consumer)

Beyond Production



A New Value Chain?

(as producer)

produser

(as user)

content content



Produsage

‒ beyond production:• ‘the people formerly known as the audience’ (Jay Rosen)• ‘anyone can edit’ (Wikipedia) – users become producers of content• content is no longer a distinct product – it is a temporary artefact of an

ongoing process• usage and production are increasingly, inextricably intertwined• strict distinctions between producers, distributors, and consumers no

longer apply• a new “Generation C” (Trendwatching.com) of content produsers?

this is produsage



content development space

set up by community or company to

harbour produsage

(e.g. Wikimedia Foundation; Google;

SourceForge)

commercial / non-profit harvesting of user-generated content

(e.g. The Sims, Wikipedia on CD-ROM)

commercial / non-profit services to support produsage

(e.g. Red Hat, SourceForge)

commercial activities by users themselves, harnessing the hive

(e.g. support services, consultancies, content sales)

initial IP contributions from

individuals, the public domain, or

commercial sources

collaborative, iterative, evolutionary, palimpsestic user-led content development

valuable, often commercial-grade content is created

Produsage Environment(populated by produsers)

Breaking the Chains



Threat or Opportunity?

‒ Impact on librarians:• explosion in content creation

∘ new sources of quality content (e.g. blogs, wikis)

• competing knowledge structures∘ self-organising knowledge communities

• explosion in collaborative metadata generation∘ everyday ‘coolfinding’ (Mark Pesce) points to quality content

• self-organising knowledge communities∘ rapid prototyping of new knowledge structures


creativeindustries.qut.comimage by Maproom Systems



Folksonomies‒ User-generated ways of categorising content:

• fluid and changeable rather than predetermined and fixed• palimpsestic – repeatedly erased, overwritten, revised• responsive to participants’ changing views• flat (or heterarchical) rather than hierarchical organisation• not requiring all participants to work together or agree on one view• but not chaotic: common patterns usually emerge very quickly• indicating commonly held views among many users

folksonomy: “folk-driven taxonomy”∘ e.g. del.icio.us, Digg, Reddit – also Google itself!

• similar to well-worn, “user-generated” paths in a park∘ contrasted with predetermined, paved pathways



del.icio.us Tagging Patterns

Golder & Huberman, 2005



Folksonomy Effects

“By tweaking some of the underlying assumptions behind today's Web, you could design an alternative version that could potentially mimic the self-organising neighborhoods of cities or the differentiated lobes of the human brain – and could definitely reproduce the simpler collective problem-solving of ant colonies. The Web's not inherently disorganized, it's just built that way.” (Stephen Johnson: Emergence, 2001)

• folksonomic systems make such tweaks, curating Web content∘ multiple alternative folksonomic knowledge structures now available∘ e.g. Google, del.icio.us, Wikipedia, specialist portals, etc.∘ more alternatives can be created by interested produser communities∘ they will be successful if a critical mass of users sees them as worthwhile



And Librarians?‒ ‘Folk’ knowledge is key:

• folk experts help cover those areas which ‘real’ experts miss∘ ‘real’ experts: tip of the iceberg∘ ‘folk’ experts: bulk of the iceberg

• human knowledge too broad and diverse to rely on experts alone

‒ Professional opportunities:• ‘folk’ knowledge points towards community

interests and new developments• many industries developing ways to ‘harness the

hive’ (e.g. through social media)• need for staff skilled in curating ‘folk’ content and

combining it with ‘expert’ knowledge• also opportunity for ‘folk’ experts to develop

professional careersimage by greenpeace.italia



Working with Folksonomies

QUT Creative Industries reference librarians’ tag cloud on del.icio.us



Datamining Folksonomies

Visualisations of individual users’ del.icio.us tagging patterns, by Kunal Anand



Towards the Cosmopedia

‒ Pierre Lévy:• [The Cosmopedia] serves as a site of collective discussion, negotiation,

and development. A pluralistic image of knowledge, the cosmopedia is the mediating fabric between the collective intellect and its world, between the collective intellect and itself. Knowledge is no longer separated from the concrete realizations that give it meaning, not from the activities and practices that engender knowledge and that knowledge modifies in turn. Depending on the zones of use and paths of exploration, hierarchies between users and designers, authors and readers, are inverted. ... In the cosmopedia, all reading is writing. The cosmopedia is a relativistic space, which curves when we read or write in it. (1997)

• To help manage that environment, librarians are more crucial than ever!



Contact

Axel Bruns

Creative Industries Faculty

Queensland University of Technology

[email protected]

http://snurb.info/

http://produsage.org/

http://gatewatching.org/

Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond:From Production to Produsage (Peter Lang, 2008)

Education

All the World's a Library: Produsage and User-Led Curation (ARLIS 2008 Keynote)