{"id":1011,"date":"2019-10-29T13:55:20","date_gmt":"2019-10-29T13:55:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/newsletter\/?p=1011"},"modified":"2019-11-22T19:42:00","modified_gmt":"2019-11-22T19:42:00","slug":"contribute-to-crowd-sourcing-projects-at-crowdcafe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/newsletter\/contribute-to-crowd-sourcing-projects-at-crowdcafe\/","title":{"rendered":"Contribute to Crowd-Sourcing Projects at CrowdCafe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Gabe Feldstein, Digital Publishing and Outreach Specialist, interviewed Sarah Melton, the Head of Digital Scholarship and co-coordinator of CrowdCafe.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

When\ndid CrowdCafe start? Was there a particular campaign that inspired this model\nfor getting things done as a large group?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were particularly inspired by humanitarian\nrelief projects that mobilize volunteers in the wake of disasters. The Humanitarian\nOpenStreetMap Team<\/a>, for example, crowdsources data that is used to\nimprove maps of areas that have been affected by disasters, giving responders a\nbetter sense of on-the-ground, real-time conditions. Map-a-thons after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico<\/a>\nhelped provide the Red Cross with navigation information, even when existing\nmaps were missing roads, buildings, and other geographic data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CrowdCafe began in 2018 as a collaborative\ninitiative between digital scholarship staff at Boston College and Boston\nUniversity Libraries. Led by Sarah Melton, BC\u2019s Head of Digital Scholarship,\nand Vika Zafrin, BU\u2019s Digital Scholarship Librarian, the monthly event aims to\nprovide a loose infrastructure for people wishing to contribute to crowdsourced\nprojects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, with more and more cultural\nheritage materials available online, we wanted to encourage local participation\nin crowdsourcing projects on a regular basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

If I\ndon\u2019t know how to code, can I still get involved with some of the projects?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Absolutely! We maintain a curated list of projects<\/a> that are meant for anyone to\nparticipate, no coding skills required. Some projects may ask you to create an\naccount, but we\u2019ve selected initiatives that are meant to be beginner-friendly\nand assume little technical knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is\nyour favorite crowdsourcing project that you have worked on so far via\nCrowdCafe?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I keep coming back to the Boston Public\nLibrary\u2019s Anti-Slavery Manuscript<\/a> collection. This\ncollection of letters between 19th century anti-slavery activists is an amazing\nglimpse into the daily lives\u2014sometimes extraordinary, sometimes mundane!\u2014of\nabolitionists. Transcribing these hand-written materials makes it much easier\nfor researchers to discover relevant sources and enables full-text searching\nwithin and across documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I need a break from 19th century\nhandwriting, I work on some of the wildlife classification projects on the\ncrowdsourcing platform Zooniverse. The PELIcams project<\/a>, for example, has volunteers\nclassify and describe images of pelicans in the Great Salt Lake region to\nbetter understand the effects of climate change on their habitat and behavior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is each\nCrowdCafe assigned to a specific project, or do I get to choose what I work on\nwhen I arrive? Will staff be there to help me or should I do research\nbeforehand on my own?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though some CrowdCafes have a topical focus,\nparticipants are always welcome to work on whatever interests them\u2014or bring\ntheir own projects! We suggest looking at our list of compiled projects for\nideas, but we\u2019ll be available to talk through ideas and help get you started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\ninspires you to continue to devote time to these crowd-sourced projects?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to working on my favorite\nprojects, I enjoy getting to know other participants and learning more about\nthe projects they\u2019re excited about. Many initiatives also have \u201cprogress bars\u201d\nthat show how close the project is to completion. It\u2019s great to be able to see\nhow your contributions are helping make knowledge more available.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Join Boston College and Boston University Libraries at CrowdCafe. Participate in crowd-sourced projects on the third Friday of every month,1 pm \u2013 3pm. Join online via Zoom or in-person in the Digital Studio, room 205, O\u2019Neill Library.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1],"tags":[],"series":[],"coauthors":[32,78],"class_list":["post-1011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1011"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1017,"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011\/revisions\/1017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1011"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=1011"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}