NOTE: This is a discussion document and may have little or no relationship to what is eventually proposed for phase 2 of the Social Side of Reflections. This draft, in fact, has been written before the first project is even completed. Much may change! Comments welcome (see below).

The Minnesota Reflections site brings together a rich set of resources from institutions across the state. Each institution must not only provide images and documents, but also the metadata to describe these items. Providing even basic metadata is a challenge, full descriptions of each item are nearly impossible to generate. For a number of years planners of the Minnesota Digital Library Coalition (MDLC) have wondered whether it would not be possible to open up the description of items to public input. The Social Side of Reflections (SSR) project has demonstrated that, indeed, the public is interested in leaving generally helpful and interesting commentary about our holdings. The challenge now is how to grow and develop this opportunity for public commentary.

We have at least two options for a next-stage SSR:

• Option A… We can massage the current SSR system by integrating the commentary more closely with the Reflections database, for example allowing cross-searching, and providing a greater variety of commentary mechanisms, for example tying the commentary closely to the Steve-based tagging. This would maintain the control MDLC has over the content of the commentary but provide for some growth in the way we use the data.

• Option B… We could push the commentary out into the “mainstream” of the web’s social networks by putting versions of our images on a major image site and encouraging commentary there. This would make it much more likely that the masses would stumble upon MDL content and be inspired to leave their ideas attached. By careful design of our use of the mainstream site, we could also turn each posted image into a conduit of patrons back to the institutions which hold those images.

Some combination of the two options is also possible. For example, we might decide to pursue Option A while at the same time committing a couple collections of MDL to Option B. It should be noted that pursuing either option in any measure will require similar technical resources to pursuing them full-bore, but approaching Option B, in particular, with a more limited scope could allow us to avoid an extended educational engagement with our own holding institutions.

Requirements of Option A, Massaging SSR

1. Continued consulting and system administration effort equivalent to one day per month. ($9,600)

2. Coordination with Steve effort would require meetings and communications likely to amount to one day per quarter. ($3,200)

3. Development of Steve integration would require coding in the neighborhood of three days effort. ($2,400)

4. Development of search integration would require coordination with Reflections team including meetings and communications of about one half-day per quarter. ($1,600)

5. Effort developing our Steve collaboration. (Outside consultant’s scope.)

6. Effort developing broader search engine for Reflections. (Outside consultant’s scope.)

7. Writing up an assessment report of the project. ($2,400)

8. Overhead costs of consultant. (+10%)

Requirements of Option B, Mainstreaming SSR

1. Investigation of mainstream options would require four hours a week for one month. ($1,600)

2. Development of data flow from Reflections to mainstream would require coding in the neighborhood of ten days effort. ($8,000)

3. Babysitting over comments left in the mainstream site would require roughly one day per quarter. ($3,200)

4. Participating in educational effort to convince holding institutions of the value of mainstreaming SSR would require about 80 hours if we are going full-bore, and about 5 hours for a small pilot. ($400 - $3,200)

5. Writing up an assessment report of the project. ($2,400)

6. Overhead costs of consultant. (+10%)

Putting the picture together

As a consultant, I do not charge by the hour. The estimates above are made to help me understand the costs of a project, but I would not bill the project or justify my time in these ways. I find projects require much more fluid application of time and effort that such a picture allows. Still, these estimates are helpful in understanding the likely cost of the effort.

Looking at this, Option A comes out to $21,000 in consultant costs and Option B (as a pilot effort) is slightly less at $17,000. Doing both would cost about $35,000 given that only a single assessment need be written.

That’s the ballpark for now. I would be happy to review this with you further and to consider some sort of discounts if the MDL cannot, in the end, afford this cost. For example, I think either option could probably be squeezed into the $15,000 budget you had mentioned. It is clearer to me, though, that I would have a hard time doing both, even if Option B is only a pilot, on that budget.