Presentation by Sander Pieterse (Naturalis Biodiversity Center & Xeno-canto Foundation for Nature Sounds) on October 31st 2016 at the workshop Two Birds, One Stone: Bridging cultural heritage collections with crowds and niches.

1. Every Feather and Song
Sander Pieterse
Naturalis Biodiversity Center //
Xeno-canto Foundation for Nature
Sounds
@zzherc
Digibird symposium
“Two birds, one stone”
October 31, 2016
Netherlands Institute
for Sound & Vision
Hilversum, The Netherlands
Crowdsourcing and
co-curation from
a natural history
perspective

2. Naturalis Biodiversity Center
= (collection × research) + museum
40 million specimens

3. Also, T. rex.

4. ● ‘Cognitive surplus’: to build a big
collection together
● Networking: finding and binding
amateurs and professionals
● Enrichment: gather object types not
part of own (Naturalis) collection
Why do we crowdsource?

5. National thesaurus of multicellular species
observed in The Netherlands since 1758
www.nederlandsesoorten.nl
Dutch Species Catalog

6. Dutch species: illustrate ‘em all
photographers validators
photo editor
(admin)
publication

7. Transcription of specimen labels

8. Whale & dolphin strandings

9. Xeno-canto Found for Nature Sounds
● Popularise bird sounds &
recording
● Improve access to bird sounds
● Increase the knowledge of bird
sounds
● Build the ultimate, complete
sound guide
● Through www.xeno-canto.org

10. Xeno-canto collection in numbers
● 328,632
recordings
● 9,662 species
(> 90% of all
species)
● 3,309 recordists
● 4728+ hours of
recordings

11. What to do when crowdsourcing?

12. Provide a shared goal
e.g. illustrating inter- and intraspecific diversity

13. Create a sense of connectedness
Make the shared goal social
e.g. by
● acknowledging users
● stand amongst your users
● meetings between users
● co-curating content
● solving puzzles together

14. Connectedness: helping research(ers)

15. ● Customization
● Create feedback loops
● Provide (new) insights
● Personal progression
Allow for autonomy and mastery

16. Always
● provide shared goal (a purpose)
● create a sense of connectedness
● allow for autonomy and mastery
Also, be aware that
● content issues will arise
● expertise can be a bottleneck, too
What to do when crowdsourcing?

17. Connecting species to specimens

18. Connecting sounds to species

19. Every Feather and Song
Sander Pieterse
Naturalis Biodiversity Center //
Xeno-canto Foundation for Nature
Sounds
@zzherc
Digibird symposium
“Two birds, one stone”
October 31, 2016
Netherlands Institute
for Sound & Vision
Hilversum, The Netherlands
Crowdsourcing and
co-curation from
a natural history
perspective