Queens of Collection and Curation: Pinterest use in the Society for Creative Anachronism

Abstract

Research problem: Previous investigations of communities within the social curation platform Pinterest have neglected groups focused on education and research. This study examines the use Pinterest as an information repository by such communities.

Methodology: Using Pinterest’s API, the researcher collected a dataset of 300 pins from 10 pin boards belonging to Pinterest users who self-identified an affiliation with the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA), an organisation dedicated to pre-17th century research and re-creation. The source websites of these pins were categorised according to the typography of Hall and Zarro (2012).

Results: The researcher found noticeable differences in the sources of SCA pins when compared to Hall and Zarro’s investigation of popular pin sources. SCA pinners were far more likely to pin content from museums and libraries, while being far less likely to source pins from blogs. In addition, 24% of the pins sources were of an instructional nature, supporting Jones’ (2016) assertion that Pinterest is a platform for future yearning and intent.

A categorisation of the pin descriptions using Shatford’s faceted model of image description (1986) showed similarities to prior studies of Flickr tags (Huang & Jörgensen, 2013) in that a large number of pin descriptions referenced generic objects and specific locations. However, they differed from Flickr tags in that a third of all pin descriptions also referred to specific time periods. These findings support Marshall’s (2009) conclusion that narrative metadata may be more effective than tags for capturing certain aspects of images.

Implications: Understanding the behaviour and intentions of different groups within the Pinterest community can help galleries, libraries, archives and museums better target their content towards specific users and could increase user engagement with their collections.