Map the GLAM is part of a PhD thesis focusing on cultural content aggregators, such as Wikimedia Commons and Europeana. In particular, Map the GLAM visualises the metadata of digital images uploaded by ETH-Bibliothek to Wikimedia Commons. The thesis aims to discover interface characteristics that may foster the access and usage of digital images released under open licenses by Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAMs). The project has two main goals. On the one hand, it tries to define a set of visual representations to analyse the status and the spread of a digitised collection in Wikipedia and its sister projects. On the other hand, it tries to identify usability issues that hinder the access and usage use of digital images.

Map the GLAM - visual filter

The source code of the project is released under GNU General Public License and available on GitHub.

Map the GLAM is a project by Giovanni Profeta. It is developed within DensityDesign research lab in the framework of the PhD in Design at Politecnico di Milano, with the support of the Laboratory of visual culture SUPSI.

Foundations

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Chart displaying the relationships among Wikimedia projects pages

Cultural content aggregators, such as Wikipedia, Europeana and European Library are complex information systems collecting digitised collection coming from multiple cultural institutions. They have a significant impact on culture and society.[1]

Because of the broad audience, there is a growing interest of GLAMs in cooperating with these web platforms to make their digitised collections open and largely accessible. Cultural content aggregators are relevant because of the opportunity to find digitised items coming from multiple digital archives in one platform that can be used with few restrictions. Cultural aggregators are becoming more technologically efficient and cultural institutions are adopting rigorous sharing methods for their digital resources. Nevertheless, the user interfaces of these web platforms show some usability issues. Thus, the majority part of the available heritage is invisible to the end-user. [2]

This project targets both GLAMs and end-users of cultural content aggregators. On the one hand, Map the GLAM tries to identify more advanced metrics and visualization models to analyse the online impact of a digitised collection. On the other hand, a novel cultural content aggregator (called GLAM Culture Hub) was designed to evaluate possible solutions to fix current usability issues for end-users.

Map the GLAM is based on the results achieved through the GLAM visual tool research project, the analysis of the most widely used GLAM tools (such as Baglama and GLAMorous), and an in-depth analysis of the most relevant cultural content aggregators in Europe.

Research method

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The project consists of three main steps: data gathering, data visualisation and design of a novel cultural content aggregator. Before the project started, a map of the GLAMs contributing to Wikimedia Commons was made to select a specific cultural institution to be investigated. Among them, ETH-Bibliothek is chosen because it is one of the leading cultural institutions in terms of files uploaded in Wikimedia Commons. Furthermore, its photographic collections have been used in several projects and linguistic versions.

Visualisation protocols

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A set of visualisation protocols describe the steps to be performed from data gathering to data visualisation. It aims to make the data visualizations easy to replicate.

Map of the GLAMs

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The following are the steps conducted to make the map of the GLAMs:

  1. Gathering the list of the GLAMs, and the related number of files uploaded, starting from the following categories on Wikimedia Commons with 3 degrees of nesting:
  2. GLAMs with less than 50 files uploaded are excluded
  3. Gathering the coordinates of the cultural institutions from Open Street Map
  4. Visualising the map by using D3.js and Leaflet, with tiles by Open Street Map.

Images' upload

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The following are the steps conducted to gather and visualise data about the pictures uploaded by ETH Library on Wikimedia Commons.

  1. Gathering the list of all the images uploaded by ETH Library (via Wikimedia Commons API)
  2. Gathering the upload date and the license of the photos (via Wikimedia Commons API)
  3. Visualising the timeline by using D3.js.

Images' size

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The following are the steps conducted to gather and visualise data about the size of images uploaded by ETH Library on Wikimedia Commons.

  1. Starting from the list of all the images uploaded by ETH Library (see Images' upload), gather the digital size of the pictures (via Wikimedia Commons API)
  2. Gathering the physical image size by scraping the Wikimedia Commons page
  3. Parsing of the data about the physical image size to make them easy to compare with the digital size
  4. Visualising the digital size and the physical size, through a heatmap, by using D3.js.

Images' usage

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The following are the steps conducted to gather and visualise data about images usage over Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons.

  1. Starting from the list of all the images uploaded by ETH Library (see Images' upload), gather the list of pages including the images by scraping the Wikimedia Commons page
  2. Collecting all the revisions of the pages including the ETH Library images via Wikimedia Commons API) and Wikipedia API
  3. Parsing all the reviews to check the date in which the ETH Library image was included in the page
  4. Visualising the Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons timelines by using D3.js.

Features of used images

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The following are the steps conducted to gather and visualise data about the images used in Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons.

  1. Resuming all the revisions of the pages including the ETH Library pictures (see Images' usage) and the metadata of the images (see Images' size)
  2. Parsing of the data to obtain the list of images used in Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons
  3. Parsing of the data to collect sets of authors, dates, mediums and orientation.

Pageviews

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The following are the steps conducted to gather and visualise the daily pageviews of pages containing ETH Library images.

  1. Starting from the list of pages including ETH Library images (see Images' usage), gather the daily page views via Wikimedia API
  2. Parse the data gained to obtain the average daily page views
  3. Visualising the chart by using D3.js.

Images' position within pages

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The following are the steps conducted to gather and visualise the data about the Images' position within Wikipedia pages.

  1. Starting from the list of Wikipedia pages including ETH Library images (see Images' usage), gather the HTML file of the page.
  2. Parsing of the HTML file to obtain the starting tag of the ETH Library image as a relative value, from 0 (the very beginning of the HTML page) to 100 (at the end of the page). In this step, data about the page typology (article/user page/discussion page/other types of pages) are also collected.
  3. Gathering of minimum, maximum and median values for every page typology.

This method does not collect data about the visual position of an image within a page, but, after some manual checks, I found that it provides accurate results.

Visualisations

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Map of the GLAMs

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The maps show the GLAMs (galleries, libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions) contributing to Wikimedia Commons. The map includes 168 GLAMs: 3 are galleries, 32 are libraries, 26 are archives, 50 are museums, and 57 are other cultural institutions (foundations, public agencies etc.)

Visualising the contribution of ETH Library

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Images' upload

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The timeline (from May 2016 to June 2018) shows the uploads of ETH Library images in Wikimedia Commons. The data were scraped through the Commons API by using the category “Media contributed by the ETH-Bibliothek”.

Images' size

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The visualisation shows the digital and the physical size of ETH Libraries images. From the comparison, it looks like there is sometimes a swap of width and height in the physical size of the images (this might be due to the unstructured field "Dimension" in the images'metadata).

Images' usage

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The visualisation shows the typologies of pages and linguistic version in which collection pictures were added.

Features of used images

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The visualisation shows the metadata of the photos that have been added to Wikipedia and Commons pages. Wikipedia pie charts refer to 5% of the collection. Commons pie chart refers to 50% of the collection.

Pageviews

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The visualisation shows the daily page views of Wikipedia and Commons pages containing ETH Library images. The average is calculated between July 2016 and July 2018.

Images' position within pages

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The visualisation shows the average position of ETH Library images within Wikipedia pages. The data are gathered through the analysis of the wikitext. It is not based on the visible position within the page).

Most used images

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The following is the top 100 of the most used ETH Library images over Wikipedia and its sister projects. This list was used to search on the web, via TinEye, the websites using ETH Library images. Some of them were contacted in order to gather some information on the access and usage of the images.

  1. Leo Wehrli.jpg
  2. ETH-BIB-Internationaler Mathematikerkongress, Zürich 1932-Portrait-Portr 10680-FL.tif
  3. ETH-BIB--Portrait-.tif
  4. ETH-BIB-Waerden, Bartel Leendert van der (1903-1996)-Portrait-Portr 12193.tif
  5. ETH-BIB-Wolf, Johann Rudolf (1816-1893)-Portrait-Portr 12033-RE.tif (cropped).jpg
  6. ETH-BIB-Weiss, Pierre (1865-1940)-Portrait-Portr 01257.tif (cropped).jpg
  7. ETH-BIB-Junkers F.13 (R-RECI) über Teheran aus 1000 m Höhe-Persienflug 1924-1925-LBS MH02-02-0089-AL-FL.tif
  8. ETH-BIB-Max Frisch-Com C20-015-023-001.tif
  9. ETH-BIB-Escher, Alfred (1819-1882)-Portrait-Portr 05342.tif (cropped).jpg
  10. ETH-BIB-Heer, Oswald (1809-1883)-Portrait-Portr 11212.tif
  11. ETH-BIB-Kinkel, Gottfried (1815-1882)-Portrait-Portr 00159.tif (cropped).jpg
  12. ETH-BIB-Schröter, Carl (1855-1939)-Portrait-Portr 06453.tif (cropped).jpg
  13. ETH-BIB-Fiedler, Wilhelm (1832-1912)-Portrait-Portr 04712.tif (cropped).jpg
  14. ETH-BIB-Basel, St. Jakob, Stadion, Fussballspiel-LBS H1-016082.tif
  15. ETH-BIB-Lunge, Georg (1839-1923)-Portrait-Portr 00184.jpg
  16. ETH-BIB-Bernoulli, Daniel (1700-1782)-Portrait-Portr 10971.tif (cropped).jpg
  17. ETH-BIB-F.-A. Forel, gestorben 1912-Dia 247-08554.tif
  18. ETH-BIB-Bagdad - grosse Moschee aus 200 m Höhe-Persienflug 1924-1925-LBS MH02-02-0036-AL-FL.tif
  19. ETH-BIB-Lugeon, Maurice (1870 - 1953)-Portrait-Portr 09852.tif (cropped).jpg
  20. ETH-BIB-Kenngott, Gustav Adolf (1818-1897)-Portrait-Portr 12032.tif (cropped).jpg
  21. ETH-BIB-Max Frisch-Com C20-015-023-001.jpg
  22. ETH-BIB-Bamberger, Eugen (1857-1932)-Portrait-Portr 00015.tif (cropped).jpg
  23. ETH-BIB-Kleiner, Alfred (1849-1916)-Portrait-Portr 10505.tif (cropped).jpg
  24. ETH-BIB-Junkers F.13 (R-RECI) über Teheran aus 1000 m Höhe-Persienflug 1924-1925-LBS MH02-02-0088-AL-FL.tif
  25. ETH-BIB-Steinmetz , Charles Proteus (1865-1923)-Portrait-Portr 03023.jpg
  26. San Lazzaro degli Armeni 1934.png
  27. ETH-BIB-Thury, René (1860-1938)-Portrait-Portr 03322.tif
  28. ETH-BIB-Gilberte de Courgenay (Hôtel de la Gare) Gemälde von Vittini 1949-Dia 247-15622.tif
  29. ETH-BIB-Rambert, Eugène (1830-1886)-Portrait-Portr 00216.jpg
  30. ETH-BIB-Weber, Heinrich (1842-1913)-Portrait-Portr 09008.tif (cropped).jpg
  31. ETH-BIB-Expeditionsmitglieder vor der Junkersmaschine bei der Funkenstation. Von links nach rechts- Dr. Kurt Wegener, A. Neumann, H.H. Hammer, F. Duus. Oben- W. Löwe, Holbein, Wedekind.-Spitzbergenflug 1923-LBS MH02-01-0132.tif
  32. ETH-BIB-Marcou, Jules (1824-1898)-Portrait-Portr 09635.tif (cropped).jpg
  33. ETH-BIB-Rudio, Ferdinand (1856-1929)-Portrait-Portr 09009.tif
  34. Mitarbeiterin der EMPA in St-Gallen.jpg
  35. ETH-BIB-Buschehr aus 300 m Höhe-Persienflug 1924-1925-LBS MH02-02-0203-AL-FL.tif
  36. ETH-BIB-Der König der Mossi (Moro naba) umgeben von seinen Stammeshäuptlingen anlässlich des Neujahrsempfanges-Tschadseeflug 1930-31-LBS MH02-08-0867.tif
  37. ETH-BIB-Cherbuliez, Antoine-Elisée (1797-1869)-Portrait-Portr 00911.tif
  38. ETH-BIB-Blick ins Kraterloch des Kibo aus 6500 m Höhe-Kilimanjaroflug 1929-30-LBS MH02-07-0119.tif
  39. ETH-BIB-Berschis, Sichelchamm, Fulfirst, Rheintal v. S. W. aus 3600 m-Inlandflüge-LBS MH01-001524.tif
  40. ETH-BIB-Frey-Wyssling, Albert (1900-1988)-Portrait-Portr 00095.tif
  41. ETH-BIB-Früh, Johann Jakob (1852-1938)-Portrait-Portr 02884.tif (cropped).jpg
  42. ETH-BIB-Französisches Flugzeug am Kap Juby-Tschadseeflug 1930-31-LBS MH02-08-1078.tif
  43. ETH-BIB-La Nicca, Richard (1794-1883)-Portrait-Portr 09603.tif (cropped).jpg
  44. ETH-BIB-Herschel, Caroline (1750-1848)-Portrait-Portr 11026-092-SF.jpg
  45. ETH-BIB-Scheuchzer, Johannes (1684 -1738)-Portrait-Portr 12168.tif
  46. ETH-BIB-Salvisberg, Otto Rudolf (1882-1940)-Portrait-Portr 00351.tif
  47. ETH-BIB-Roth, Otto (1853-1927)-Portrait-Portr 01251.tif (cropped).jpg
  48. ETH-BIB-Treadwell, Frederic Pearson (1857-1918)-Portrait-Portr 01256.tif (cropped).jpg
  49. Kurt Gloor 1972.jpg
  50. Paul Nizon ETH Portr 11877-008.tif
  51. Schweizerhalle Aufraeumarbeiten 1.jpg
  52. ETH-BIB-Stodola, Emil (1862-1945)-Portrait-Portr 10885.tif
  53. ETH-BIB-Bank of Ethiopia, Addis Abeba-Abessinienflug 1934-LBS MH02-22-0994.tif
  54. Bilder vom Spitzbergenflug, Arthur Neumann, W. Mittelholzer .jpg
  55. ETH-BIB-Brunner, William (1878-1958)-Portrait-Portr 00050.tif
  56. ETH-BIB-Bluntschli, Hans (1877-1962)-Portrait-Portr 02804.tif (cropped).jpg
  57. ETH-BIB-Barcelona, Sagrada Familia-Tschadseeflug 1930-31-LBS MH02-08-0201.tif
  58. ETH-BIB-Bolley, Pompejus Alexander (1812-1870)-Portrait-Portr 00041.tif (cropped).jpg
  59. Emosson Construction.jpg
  60. ETH-BIB-Internationaler Mathematikerkongress, Zürich 1932-Portrait-Portr 10680-C-FL.tif
  61. ETH-BIB-Junkers F.13 (R-RECI) über Teheran-Persienflug 1924-1925-LBS MH02-02-0090-AL-FL.tif
  62. ETH-BIB-Gruppe Nomaden vor einem französischen Flugzeug am Kap Juby-Tschadseeflug 1930-31-LBS MH02-08-1077.tif
  63. ETH-BIB-Paul-Armand Challemel-Lacour (1827-1896), Professor am eidg. Polytechnikum 1856-1859-Portrait-Portr 05548.tif (cropped).jpg
  64. ETH-BIB-Medicus, Fritz (1876-1956)-Portrait-Portr 10808.tif
  65. ETH-BIB-Mosen, Hallwilersee aus 2000 m-Inlandflüge-LBS MH01-005550.tif
  66. ETH-BIB-Schwarz, Hermann Amand (1843-1921)-Portrait-Portr 11921.tif (cropped).jpg
  67. ETH-BIB-Schellenberg, Hans Konrad (1872-1923)-Portrait-Portr 02898.tif (cropped).jpg
  68. ETH-BIB-Ruine Küssaburg bei Küssnach-LBS H1-021493.tif
  69. ETH-BIB-Rebstein, Johann Jakob (1840-1907)-Portrait-Portr 09939.tif (cropped).jpg
  70. ETH-BIB-Marchreisenspitze in den Kalkkögeln von Norden-Inlandflüge-LBS MH01-006699.tif
  71. ETH-BIB-Rübel-Blass, Eduard (1876-1960)-Portrait-Portr 12952.tif
  72. ETH-BIB-Plaza de España in Sevilla-Nordafrikaflug 1932-LBS MH02-13-0568.tif
  73. Lawinenwinter 1951 Lue Daint.jpg
  74. ETH-BIB-Theobald, Gottfried Ludwig (1810-1869)-Portrait-Portr 08904.tif (cropped).jpg
  75. SDS 930.jpg
  76. ETH-BIB-Taubenturm (Oase Viramin)-Persienflug 1924-1925-LBS MH02-02-0072-AL-FL.tif
  77. Zürichsee Trajekt.jpg
  78. ETH-BIB-Uster, Schloss Uster und Wirtschaft mit Gemüsegarten-Inlandflüge-LBS MH01-001884.tif
  79. Joachim von Ribbentrop in 1936.png
  80. ETH-BIB-St. Imier, Mont Soleil, Vacherie v. S. O. aus 1600 m-Inlandflüge-LBS MH01-006046.tif
  81. ETH-BIB-An den Ufern des Tigris (Bagdad)-Persienflug 1924-1925-LBS MH02-02-0041-AL-FL.tif
  82. ETH-BIB-Afrikanische Pflanze mit Blüten-Kilimanjaroflug 1929-30-LBS MH02-07-0255.tif
  83. ETH-BIB-Aleppo-Persienflug 1924-1925-LBS MH02-02-0025-AL-FL.tif
  84. ETH-BIB-Fiedler, Wilhelm (1832-1912)-Portrait-Portr 04712.jpg
  85. ETH-BIB-Arabertypen Bagdad-Persienflug 1924-1925-LBS MH02-02-0046-AL-FL.tif
  86. ETH Swissair LBS SR02-10259 Ausschnitt Klöti.tif
  87. ETH-BIB-Alexandria-Kilimanjaroflug 1929-30-LBS MH02-07-0467.tif
  88. ETH-BIB-Castell in Aleppo-Persienflug 1924-1925-LBS MH02-02-0018-AL-FL.tif
  89. ETH-BIB-Águilas, links Castillo de San Juan-Tschadseeflug 1930-31-LBS MH02-08-0196.tif
  90. ETH-BIB-Elburs mit Demawand von Süden aus 4500 m Höhe-Persienflug 1924-1925-LBS MH02-02-0083-AL-FL.tif
  91. ETH-BIB-Eugène Renevier-Dia 247-08396.tif
  92. ETH-BIB-Basel, Badische Bahnhoefe H1-008872-crop.jpg
  93. ETH-BIB-Araberscheich mit Kamelkarawane-Persienflug 1924-1925-LBS MH02-02-0044-AL-FL.tif
  94. ETH-BIB-Ein strammer Polizist des Emirs von Kano-Tschadseeflug 1930-31-LBS MH02-08-0639.tif
  95. ETH-BIB-An den Ufern des Tigris (Bagdad)-Persienflug 1924-1925-LBS MH02-02-0040-AL-FL.tif
  96. ETH-BIB-Egnach, bei Romanshorn, Schloss Luxburg-Inlandflüge-LBS MH03-0808.tif
  97. ETH-BIB-Aleppo-Persienflug 1924-1925-LBS MH02-02-0026-AL-FL.tif
  98. ETH-BIB-Böhmert, Karl Viktor (1829-1918)-Portrait-Portr 06400.tif
  99. ETH-BIB-Alabaster Sphinx, Tempel des Ptah, Memphis, Ägypten-Kilimanjaroflug 1929-30-LBS MH02-07-0158.tif
  100. ETH-BIB-Effretikon-Inlandflüge-LBS MH01-006744.tif

Findings

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The data visualisations have made visible the vast extension of the ETH collection regarding time, authors and mediums and a relatively low use within Wikimedia projects. Over the years 2016-2017-2018, 8.800 users contribute to add around 1.000 images in more than 1.000 Wikipedia pages. The photos were initially added to the German version of Wikipedia articles. Then in French, English and other 43 linguistic versions. The most used images portray intellectuals and other famous people but also aerial views of cities. The images are mainly added to pages about European and African cities. During summer 2017, there was a pick in the usage of pictures because there was a Wikipedian in residence at ETH library. After an increase in the usage of 400% in one month, the usage keeps growing at a rate of 20% in the following months. As expected, the page views follow a long tail pattern. In Wikimedia Commons, the head is much thicker and lower than in Wikipedia (very few pages are popular). The page views on Commons are much less relevant than those on Wikipedia (about 10% of those on Wikipedia, although there are 94% more pages containing files on commons). It was discovered that during the summertime (June-September) there is an evident decrease in the page views.

GLAM Culture Hub

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GLAM Culture Hub - Homepage

GLAM Culture Hub is an interactive mockup of a digital archive collecting digitised items coming from multiple GLAMs (also called cultural content aggregator). It was designed after the analysis of the spread of ETH Library's images over Wikipedia and its sister projects and the analysis of existing cultural content aggregators. The goal of GLAM Culture Hub is to evaluate, through an online survey, interface characteristics that may foster the access and usage of digital images within content aggregators.

User interface

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The preliminary research, conducted through the benchmark and user survey, showed that current cultural content aggregators have several usability issues regarding content, item classification and user interface. Among the content issues, there is a lack of information and unclear terms of use. The classification is sometimes misleading. And often the user interfaces lack tools to explore the digitised collections a consistent design. GLAM Culture Hub try to propose some design guidelines to fix these usability issues.

It consists of three main pages: the homepage, the list of items and the single item. Three types of access to the platform were conceived: unregistered users, registered users, registered users working for a GLAM.

GLAM Culture Hub features content coming from Wikimedia Commons and Europeana.

Interactive prototype and survey

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After watching the video demo or navigating the interactive prototype, you can fill in the survey. The survey will take 10 minutes to complete:

> Evaluation of the GLAM Culture Hub interface


At the following link, you can find the interactive prototype. N.B.: the interactive prototype consists of static images with the addition of some sensible areas; thus, functions cannot be performed.

> GLAM Culture Hub Interactive prototype


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References

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