Jim, Nancy & the Dutch national library - a story about 3 explorers

Jim, Nancy & the Dutch national library
A story about 3 explorers

http://www.flickr.com/photos/scouttwentynine/4968998806/sizes/o/in/photosof-jimforest

Hallo, my name is
Olaf Janssen

I’m a product developer at KB, the
national library of the Netherlands
in The Hague

Photo: Olaf Janssen

These are my colleagues…

Source: KB intranet

Every day we give our best…

Source: KB intranet

... because we are on a mission...

http://kb.nl/bst/beleid/missie.html

Our mission is:

Bring people and information together

http://kb.nl/bst/beleid/missie.html

Does converting paper into bits & bytes
bring people and information together?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Internet_Archive_book_scanner_1.jpg

Does storing these bits & bytes

(Foto: KB - Jacqueline van der Kort)

We “offer” They consume

Does “broadcasting” these bits & bytes

Slide: @mpedson

Bringing together , according to me,
is all about creating, or at least facilitating dialogue

Flickr: alexbcthompson

Dialogue is about communicating two ways

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Two-people-talking-logo.jpg

Dialogue is about listening to each other

Flickr: rthakrar

Dialogue is about sharing information

Flickr: furiousgeorge81

Dialogue is about learning from each other

http://youthinarts.org/blog/2011/04

Back to the mission & vision of the KB …

I noticed the WHY is missing ...

(the WHY touches the soul of any organisation *)

* http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html

??
WHY
does the KB want to

?! Just a bet:

“Because we believe our written cultural heritage is so
wonderful we want to show it to as many people as
possible”

!! My best personal bet:

”Because ultimately people want to know who they are.
For that they explore their histories & origins.

We want to help them in
discovering & understanding their worlds”

Example: people wanting to find out about

THE MIDDLE AGES

(in Europe)

http://kb.nl/galerie/middeleeuwen/onderwijs-en.html

Question:

Where do people go to
learn about
medieval times?


Because KB has wonderful
medieval objects online …


and onsite.

(and the expertise about it!)

Flickr: jimforest

Or here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Ages

But there are more ways to
learn about medieval times…


Flickr: jimforest


This photo was taken in the KB by a
certain Jim Forest (?)

Flickr: jimforest

This is Jim Forest .. and this is Nancy, his wife

aaa

Originally from the US, they
now live in the town of
Alkmaar, the Netherlands

(which is all about
canals & Dutch cheese)

Jim & Nancy have a tremendous
zest for life, and life-long learning.

They document this in photos …

to share with their friends & family
back home in the US…

... and with us.

They share nearly 23,600 (!) images
in public sets …

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimforest/sets/?&page=1

about every possible interest in their lives…


Mermaids


Auschwitz


Stanley
Spencer…


Paris…


Cats…


Jim & Nancy, like most other people, have amazingly
diverse interests!

Finding out about these worlds is all about making
connections, it’s an exploration, a collage


Jim & Nancy, like most other people, have amazingly
diverse interests!

Finding out about these worlds is all about making
connections, it’s an exploration, a collage

This is important, I’ll come back to this later!


Jim & Nancy are also interested in
finding out about the Middle Ages (!)

These are some of the photos taken by Jim
& Nancy with “medieval” in the description

In 2005 Jim & Nancy visited the KB

… where they learned about
medieval manuscripts.

They shared that learning
experience with the rest of the world
(= these photos & annotations)

Jim has also bookmarked photos taken by
other Flickr-photographers.

These include medieval objects as well.

Like this one ...
A painting from
13th century Spain

http://www.flickr.com/photos/elissacorsini/2163082112/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/elissacorsini/2163082112/in/photostream

This photo is part of a
collection named
“The Cloisters” (?)


The Cloisters is apparently a
branch of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in Manhattan,
New York, USA.

They curate a lot of European
medieval art & architecture

(I did not know that before making this
presentation)

http://www.metmuseum.org/visit/visit-the-cloisters

Please note: all these
photos were taken by
enthusiastic amateur
photographers, they are
not “official images” from
the MetMA

There are some excellent
objects here…

He looks pretty fit for his
age (700)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/elissacorsini/2152112595/in/set-72157601070709853/

(he looks pretty fit for
his age – 730 yrs)


The photographer has been
so kind to mention the unique
object-ID used by the
museum.

We can now go to the
museum website to find out
more …


The photographer has
been so kind to provide the
unique object ID of the
museum.

We can go to the museum
site to find out more ….

http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/70018085


More interestingly, other
people have spontaneously
included this image in a
collaborative open group about
“Middle ages in Europe”


http://www.flickr.com/groups/middle_age_in_europe/

(by the way, this group is just 1 of
100s of Flickr-groups related to the
Middle Ages. Together these groups
have 10,000s of members)

http://www.flickr.com/search/groups/?w=all&q=medieval+europe

2.229 people from all over the
world are members of this
particular group!


They have organised themselves into

Capitani di venturas
Attendenti en
Compagnias



Capitani di venturas ?
Attendenti en
Compagnias



Attendenti en
Compagnias


Attendenti en
Compagnias is about war lords &
(this
mercenaries in medieval
Italy)
(I did not know that either before
making this presentation)

Collaboratively the members of
this group have shared over
35,000 (!) photos of European
medieval objects between them,
and the rest of the world!


Some of them
are really…

suprising!

Others are
quite…

medieval!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/luigistrano/6164541445/

(this looks brutally
medieval, I wonder
what kind of dark
place that Castle of
Milazzo is)


This photo was taken on
September 17, 2011
in Milazzo, Sicily, Italy


This map give us access to
other photos that were taken
in (or around) Milazzo


Over 1,400 photos were
taken by Flickr members…

Unfortunately, the photos
here are not really useful to
help us get an idea what
kind of place the castle
really is…

But hey, we can also check out
Google Maps !

In Google Maps you can trigger a
layer with photos taken by people
all across the world

This is possible because users of another
photo sharing service, Panoramio, allow
their photos to be visible in Google Maps.
Thanks to them you and I can look around
Milazzo…

This image could well be the castle…

Thanks to the Panoramio
volunteers we can get a pretty
good idea what the Dark Castle
looks like

So far for the castle..

Let’s go back to Jim’s
favourite image


The photographer has
been so kind to add
tags to this photo.


This tagging is a form of
cataloguing, done by the public, on
their own initiative


This tagging is a form of
Tagging connects this single photo
cataloguing, done by the public, on
to the rest of the world…
their own initiative


505,385 images tagged
“gothic” have been shared
by Flickr-users…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/gothic/?page=5

(on the KB site I only
found ± 35)


Let’s look at this one...


Medieval stained glass

from St. Martin’s cathedral
in Ypres, Belgium

http://www.flickr.com/photos/spikeybwoy/7250193520/

(Isn’t this beautiful?
You probably wonder
what the rest of the
church looks like…)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/spikeybwoy/7250193520/

We are lucky an altruistic
person shot a Youtube clip
in the cathedral.

Thanks to him we can
have a look around the
church.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9tpV0airxU

Enough about stained glass…

Let’s go back to Jim & Nancy …

Just like in real life, they made some
friends on Flickr

These are some of their
139 friends

http://www.flickr.com/people/jimforest/contacts/?filter=&page=3

Let’s check out
“Lawrence OP”

http://www.flickr.com/people/jimforest/contacts/?filter=&page=3

A priest from Kuala Lumpur ..
interesting

http://www.flickr.com/people/paullew/

Lawrence is a priest from
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia ..

http://www.flickr.com/people/paullew/

Lawrence is also very much into medieval
objects …

So far he posted 784 photos with
“medieval” in the description

Because Jim & Lawrence are direct friends
on Flickr, Jim gets automatic notifications
when Lawrence has uploaded new photos

Like this medieval statue for instance…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/paullew/6222458554 /

Remember how I told you learing is about
making connections, an exploration, a collage ?

If you ask me, this is learning

If you ask me, this is learning, all done without
central authority or coordination!

And the question now is not how institutions
like KB can compete against all this …

And the question now is not how institutions
like KB can compete against all this …

…but how we can help people like Jim &
Nancy to explore and understand their world

… thus to create and facilitate dialogue
between people

… and between generations

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimforest/5511802582/in/set-72157627302719120

Thank you very much! (*)

Olaf Janssen
KB, the national library of the Netherlands

(*) and a big thanks to
Michael Edson (@mpedson)
Director of Web and New Media Strategy
of the Smithsonian Institution

This presentation builds upon his
An outside-in look at the National WWII Museum

Jim, Nancy & the Dutch national library - a story about 3 explorers

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