Collectiecommunity's leren runnen met RunCoCo

Een van de betere crowdsourcingsprojecten die ik ken, en vaste gast in mijn presentaties over archieven en sociale media, is het project The Great War Archive - uit 2008 alweer - van de Oxford University:

The Great War Archive contains over 6,500 items contributed by the general public between March and June 2008. Every item originates from, or relates to, someone's experience of the First World War, either abroad or at home. Contributions were received via a special website and also through a series of open days at libraries and museums throughout the country.

Maar het allermooiste is, dat het project doorging nadat het was afgelopen:

Although the submission process ended in June, as an exit strategy, the project has used Flickr to allow further items to be contributed (though without the formal submission and metadata process) and we are currently assessing the potential for user tagging and comments.

Dus if you build it, they will scan! Gebaseerd op onder andere het succes van dit project, is vervolgens het project RunCoCo opgezet, Run a Community Collection Online:

Community Collection....where the general public or members of a particular community are invited to contribute to a project by uploading their own content or adding information to existing resources.

The RunCoCo Project (...) provided a series of training events for organisations interested in harnessing the power of the Internet to run their own Community Collection initiative. Although the project has now ended this web site continues to make available information, guidance, software and useful links for others wishing to RunCoCo.

Op de website vind je onder andere een rapport met handige tips, maar ook open source software voor je eigen project en talloze presentaties.

Het idee is ook geëxporteerd, bijvoorbeeld naar Duitsland, waar ze nu het Erster Weltkrieg in Alltagsdokumenten project hebben, op initiatief van Europeana. Daarover kun je onderstaande presentatie eens bekijken:

Foto: Flickr/Rob Langham