The nasty truth abut content and data sharing

Editor's Notes

• #2: The nasty truth I refer to in the title makes it sound pretty ominous, but what I mean by this is that I think there are some issues about digital reuse that we need to examine. So I’m going to share some interesting examples of reuse, and then look at these nasty truths as trends and opportunities.
• #3: There’s this wonderful phrase that’s used a lot in the Library world that says “people don’t like to search for things, they like to find them”. But I don’t think it’s even about finding anymore. I think we often get so wound up in our search catalogues, and platforms, and metadata and so forth that we sometimes forget that their goal is to use or experience the items.
• #4: These are some of the words that for me describe the different actions that people are taking with reuse.
• #5: One of the most common ways people reuse items is by reproducing them in some way... publishing in a book, posting on a blog, using in a presentation etc. This is an image of Justin Beiber used on a birthday cake printed with edible inks.
• #6: This one is an example of collecting. People have been bookmarking, favouriting and collecting things on the internet right from from the beginning. Pinterest is a more recent example of this.
• #7: This is a frame from Allan Xia's "Crossed Cultures" that remixed source images from Dylan Horrocks and a poem by Renee Liang, with his own original illustrations.
• #8: Another NZ example is Definer by Mohammad Abullatif which is a dictionary of all the terms defined in the Acts of New Zealand, created from data on the Legislation NZ website. It’s an example of extracting digital material for reuse.
• #9: Richard Almond did his masters on what he called digital decay, and created this work. This is an example of what people are calling glitching, where they they edit the binary information of a file, to see try and distort it and produce unexpected results.
• #10: There’s this wonderful example from Andrew McMillan who, when driving around around Mt. Taranaki earlier this year was completely taken by the font used for the "Oakura Hall" sign. So he took this photo.
• #11: And then he turned it into a font... called Oakura. This was unexpected. There are many many more examples of reuse that I think shows us that the landscape has completely changed.
• #12: The first nasty truth. I think that our digital content and data is a commodity.
• #13: This digram from Jonathan Good reminds us that people have many places to look for material.
• #14: This is an exhibition from Erik Kessels at Foam in Amsterdam, where they printed out 24 hours of Flickr uploads. The point I’d make is that, if content and data really is a commodity, then I think it will change the way our own collections are valued and reused.
• #15: So how would we respond in a commodity market? If you think more about providing a convenient service you’ll be able to discover many other ways to make your material more valuable in a commodity market. I’d also suggest that making high resolution, hi-fi, HD, and fulltext versions of your material fully available will set you out from the crowd... at least for a while.
• #16: But my second nasty truth is that I think this commiditisation also extends to our physical artefacts. Increasingly, they can actually be copied and reproduced anywhere in the world. First up is a project called The Blu, who are working to build an interactive world where every ocean species and habitat is a unique work of art.
• #17: http://theblu.com/ Although these digital objects are not the same as the physical things, think about the point that for many people, the virtual worlds of games and immersive technologies are part of their real world.
• #18: This is a portrait bust produced by a 3D printer. The printed version is the white one closest to us, while the originals are on the right. The artist worked from a 3D scan of the original marble bust, and then extended it with a re-imagined hat. I was at a NZ teachers conference recently where 3D printers were on the trade stands being pitched to schools. So they are hitting mainstream. Check out the CyArk project to digitally preserve cultural heritage sites. There’s a great video of their work on TED.
• #19: The market for these physical interactions with your NZ items has just jumped from 4 million people to 7 billion. And I fully expect schools to be 3D printing the likes of this kiwi skeleton as part of science projects etc. If you have 3D objects in your collections you need to start thinking about how to create and share 3D scans so others can reuse them.
• #20: Good descriptions and classifications alone just don’t really cut it anymore. My third truth is that linking that metadata and sharing it, is becoming a key factor that will determine how much your material is reused.
• #21: We’re talking about Linked Open Data here, and the point that your materials can be connected into a global eco-system. Maintaining silos of perfectly managed and described collections, that are disconnected from this pool of global knowledge, will really limit the value of your material.
• #22: What steps can you take to link your data to this eco-system? Firstly, share your metadata in whatever way you can. Secondly, find another organisation that you have content in common with and agree on a common vocabulary Lastly, look for ways to link yourself to international datasets. There are well known efforts from the likes of Wikipedia and the Library of Congress that you can connect to.
• #23: The nasty truth with regard to copyright is that people just don’t care that much about it. Some of us want to believe in respecting the works of others and the creative process, but that’s just not that important to everyone.
• #24: What to do? Get rid of mixed signals. Firstly, if material is out of copyright, or you can’t confirm whether copyright still applies, mark it clearly as having “no known copyright restrictions”, because that is a true statement. Secondly, with regard to the in-copyright materials, we have learned from observing iTunes and NetFlicks that if there are convenient legal ways to acquire digital material then many people will use them. If you can answer the convenience question I think you’ll resolve some of the copyright concerns.
• #25: These are the trends that I think will drive the reuse of digital material in the near future. Thanks! Andy Neale, December 2011, @andyhkn