After the Crowds Disperse

Over the past decade, cultural heritage organisations have increasingly turned to volunteers through citizen research (or crowdsourcing) platforms to help make their holdings digitally accessible for discovery and research. These platforms have proved to be highly successful, both in attracting and retaining the interest of volunteers, and in the rate and quality of data collected. They have provided a new and deeper level of engagement and attracted more diverse audiences to national collections. However, there are still significant hurdles to overcome to achieve seamless sharing and movement of data between institutional Collection Management Systems (CMS) and crowdsourcing platforms, and back again. If crowdsourcing is to fulfil the potential of its generous volunteers this break in the data cycle must be closed.近十年来，文化遗产机构愈发借助公民研究（Citizen Research，即众包Crowdsourcing）平台招募志愿者，助力其馆藏藏品实现数字化可访问性，以供发掘与研究使用。实践证明，此类平台成效斐然：既成功吸引并留住了志愿者的参与热情，也提升了数据采集的效率与质量。它们为公众参与提供了全新且更深层次的维度，同时为国家馆藏吸引了更多元的受众群体。然而，要实现机构馆藏管理系统（Collection Management Systems，CMS）与众包平台之间以及双向的数据无缝共享与流转，仍需攻克诸多重大障碍。若要让众包平台充分释放其热忱志愿者的潜能，就必须打通数据循环中的这一断点。