What's Your Story?: Dutch Library DOK's New Cutting-edge Community Tech Projects
Sep 1, 2010DOK, the cutting-edge library center in Delft, the Netherlands, has been finding new ways to elaborate on the social networking impulse. A good library unites people from all levels of society, and DOK's unique innovation department focuses specifically on how media can bring people together. It's doing so using technology to inspire and connect its patrons.
Three department projects, mostly funded by external grants, are under way to help the library deliver on this mission: DOK Agora, the Delft Heritage Browser, and Tank U. The Delft Heritage Browser has been in DOK since the beginning of 2009, while Agora and Tank U will be implemented this fall. We hope they will be models for libraries around the world, big and small.
DOK Agora: your life's storyboard
DOK Agora is a multimedia center featuring several "tell-stories" stations, a video recording station, and a video wall that measures about 33' x 10'. Think of it as NPR's StoryCorps exploded. We aim to conjure up memories and stories in library users that they can leave behind at DOK Agora, using the tell-stories stations (see photo).
| LIFE'S STORYBOARD Via DOK Agora, by scanning library passes on a screen with a built-in RFID reader, visitors can upload a chosen story, take it to the "tell-stories" tables, and attach their own content-photos, text, audio, and video. The tables have touch screens similar to Microsoft Surface tables, as well as keyboards. A built-in camera takes a visitor's photo and adds it to his or her story. The stories are then visible on the DOK Agora screens for all to see. Photos courtesy of DOK |
The DOK Agora exhibitions, based on common themes, will change every three months. The themes will be relevant to a large number of people in Delft. A basic collection, consisting of materials from the Nationaal Instituut voor Beeld & Geluid (National Institute for Picture & Sound), the National Archive, and local archives, will be displayed at the start of every new theme. Trained staff will provide assistance at the multimedia desk (sort of like an Apple store's Genius Bar).
One possible theme could be the drastic renovation in the next ten years of the railroad zone in the downtown area. The building project will have an enormous effect on the city, the neighboring people, and businesses. We will approach the impacted community members through direct mail, Twitter, and Facebook, to invite them to take part in the exhibition in DOK Agora.
To establish themes, DOK Agora staffers will work with TOP (Technical Meeting Point), an organization that offers a meeting place for scientists and artists with innovative ideas. In collaboration with the Delft Institute for Heritage, TOP currently organizes popular evenings centered on big changes in the city. Attendees frequently reminisce about Delft, and DOK Agora will help capture those stories.
Over a period of about three months, an exhibition will grow, constructed by the users themselves. Each new theme will be launched with a grand-opening event, run in collaboration with the Delft city council, and closed with a similar get-together, where the best stories will be highlighted. A website archive will allow people to revisit their contributions.
DOK Agora thrives on the idea of collaboration. Anyone who wants to share his or her story in a contemporary fashion will be able to do so. Young or old, everyone has stories to tell in their own unique way.
Collaboration has been key in DOK Agora's creation as well. It is the product of the library's partnerships with design firms Taiko, Boog Ontwerp & Advies, Hoog & Diep, and Encage and SenterNovem, an agency of the Netherlands' Ministry of Economic Affairs. In addition, partnerships with national organizations such as Beelden voor de Toekomst, Nationaal Archief, Nationaal instituut voor Beeld & Geluid, Filmmuseum, Dutch Library Association, and the National Institute for Heritage and the Delft Institute for Heritage have all provided text, video, and photographs that form the basis of DOK Agora. These materials will be used as fodder and inspiration for DOK visitors.
Delft Heritage Browser: a living archive
Our cultural heritage, in the form of archival material—including pictures, old postcards, recordings, and videos—has long been digitized. Digitization allows archives to provide access to the material in new ways, but many archives find it difficult to take that all-important step. They cling to their websites, serving the same group that already consults the archives: historians or people simply investigating their ancestry. The Delft Heritage Browser illustrates how archives can engage larger audiences (see photo).
| IN PLACE & TIME On the Delft Heritage Browser, users can dig into the Delft city archive using membership cards, which contain their age and locations. The system shows visitors images relevant to their lives, displayed as a "pile" on the screen (inset). By touching the screen, visitors can browse images dating from when they were born, for instance, or depicting the street where they live. Photos courtesy of DOK |
DOK's Delft Heritage Browser project displays archival material in the library's public space via a Microsoft Surface table and lets patrons play. Since June 2009, we have tested this browsing tool at several locations in the library, each time further optimizing and elaborating on the application. Starting this year, the multitouch table has a fixed spot near the entrance of the library, within sight of visitors as they enter. It is almost continuously occupied, and available images are viewed over 1000 times more often on the table than they have ever been viewed on the website.
So far DOK is working with part of the city archive. Most people perceive the library to be more accessible than the city archive, and a library like DOK can more easily offer workshops and lectures that tap the archive's contents.
The city archive of Delft is a treasure trove; for example, it holds more than 25,000 pictures of all kinds of locations and activities. Over the years, archival material has just been digitized and placed on a website, where it has been seen by a limited group of interested people. As part of research at the university TU Delft, Koen Rotteveel looked into how the items could be used by DOK. It turned out that the heritage material fit with our story-sharing theme. Obviously, not all 25,000 images in the Delft city archive are appealing to everyone; the real challenge is to present the right image to the right visitor.
DOK is also working with multiple libraries and museums to create applications to access their collections. To be used, the content must be publicly available, and it must be well documented and archived. Furthermore, there should be enough digitized material within it to cover a complete city, with recognizable, relevant material to spark the interest of every inhabitant.
We have linked the archive to ClienTrix (DOK's internally developed ILS) and use Open Street Maps to display a map on the table. Users can then click on a street or location on the map to find images of a particular area. Navigating via easy-to-use controls, users can work together, tell stories, and share pictures. The dialog among the users is not archived as in Agora, but the interaction still offers valuable experiences.
The cost depends on the availability of the archive and the time required to link the systems. Libraries that have asked us to build similar applications have mostly acquired grants or cooperated with the local archive.
This concept is very flexible. It could work in many other locations, extending the reach of the library into the community. Put wheels on the Microsoft Surface table, for instance, and it could be easily transported to schools, museums, or homes for the elderly.
Tank U: the library on the go
While DOK Agora and the Delft Heritage Browser use technology to bring Delft's citizens closer to their collective past, Tank U works with wireless mobile technology to hook them into the city's present.
| FILL 'ER UP The Tank U device recognizes a mobile phone within just a few feet. Patrons can choose to download a variety of files, such as audiobooks, a magazine, movie previews (such as this one, for the 2009 French film Coco Before Chanel), or other videos. The content on Tank U consists of digital files from the library and cultural heritage institutions. Photos courtesy of DOK |
Smartphones are used for all kinds of services, connecting people—and their stories—everywhere. This formed the basis for the development of Tank U, a stand-alone, public download unit, a sort of information filling station at which people stop for a brief moment to "tank up" their mobile device via a Bluetooth or wireless connection (see photo).
The first Tank U's were due to be installed at Schiphol (Amsterdam) Airport, DOK, and Schiedam this summer. Robin Slierendrecht of 3komma14 first designed a prototype in 2006 and developed the current version of Tank U in cooperation with DOK and Hoog & Diep. It is deployed in locations beyond the library proper, such as railway stations or supermarkets, where people can receive sophisticated and surprising content.
The fuel in Tank U includes text, audio, and video from a number of sources. We have contacted national newspapers, magazines, and radio and TV stations for more national content and will continue to look for up-to-date, high-quality material. For local content in Delft, for example, we cooperate with the art-house movie theater Filmhuis Lumen and the city-run Tourist Information Point (TIP). We aspire to offer the visitors to our library as much as possible for free, even if they don't step anywhere near the library.
DOK and Its Worldwide Social Networking
DOK is a media center that combines three collections:
Music and Film (Discotake), Literature (Openbare Bibliotheek), and Art (Kunstcentrum). These collections, together with the expertise of the staff, are the basis for the flow of creativity and energy that inspires the inhabitants of Delft.
Through concepts such as Tank U, Agora, and the Heritage Browser, DOK aims to bring people together. In this new kind of citywide social networking, DOK shows that the library is of such great relevance that it can easily find partners and funding to make innovation possible. In these challenging times, in which media and communication are changing at enormous speeds, it is, in DOK's view, essential to collaborate and share best practices and ideas. DOK is always looking to work together with partners and innovative libraries around the world.
The Shanachies, Jaap van de Geer and Erik Boekesteijn (who, with Geert van den Boogaard, made LJ's 2009 Movers & Shakers list), through their trips and presentations and on their global library Internet television show, This Week in Libraries (www.thisweekinlibraries.com), bring libraries around the world together in their search for the best ways to keep, share, and make stories. Look for DOK on Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, and Facebook.
| Author Information |
| Erik Boekesteijn (e.boekesteijn@dok.info) is Innovator and Motivator at DOK, the Library Concept Center, in Delft, the Netherlands |
