The British Library holds over 180-200 million items in its collection, including manuscripts, maps, newspapers, and other materials. Only about 1-2% of the collection has been digitized so far due to the challenges of scale, including the resources needed for imaging, cataloging, and dealing with copyright issues for such a vast collection. The library is addressing these challenges through various digitization efforts and tools that make collections available online, as well as training programs to empower staff in digital scholarship methods and innovations. The goal is for the library to support new ways of exploring and accessing collections through open access digital resources and collaborations.

1. The Art of Work in the Age of
Mechanical Digital Manual?
Reproduction
Dr. Mia Ridge, @mia_out
Digital Curator, British Library
digitalresearch@bl.uk @BL_DigiSchol

2. Digital scholarship @ British Library
We support new ways of exploring and
accessing our collections through:
• Getting digital and digitised content available
online
• Collaborative projects
• Digital scholarship support and guidance
• Events, publications and training
• Competitions, and awards (BL Labs)

3. https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/11092384623/
Imagetakenfrompage384of'Man,embracinghisorigin,...civilization,...mentalandmoralfaculties....
Illustrated'
BritishLibraryHMNTS10007.g.36

4. The challenges of scale

5. The challenges of scale
• The BL holds 180-200 million items, including:
• 8 million stamps
• 310,000 manuscript volumes
• Over 4 million maps
• Legal deposit: pamphlets, magazines, newspapers,
sheet music and maps
• Television and radio recordings
• Websites, e-books, e-journals
• Over 3 million new items are added every year

6. The challenges of scale
• The online catalogues aren’t (yet) complete
• Imaging and cataloguing takes resources
• Copyright is... complicated
• Only 1-2% of collections digitised

7. Endangered ArchivesThe challenges of scale
Interfaces need to work for ‘treasures’ and
multi-volume, many-paged collections

8. The challenges of scale
• Migration between systems can take years
• Ingest and processing can take weeks
• Interfaces need to work for casual visitors and
scholars who want a reading room experience

9. Solutions
https://www.flickr.com/photos/sdasmarchives/29529041342/ Catalog:14_027996

11. IIIF player

12. 'A million images' on Flickr
Commons

13. Mario Klingemann
'556 Minerals'

14. Internal digital scholarship training

15. • Staff across all collection areas are familiar and
conversant with the foundational concepts,
methods and tools of digital scholarship.
• Staff are empowered to innovate.
• Collaborative digital initiatives flourish across
subject areas within the Library and externally.
• Training and skill-sharing in digital scholarship are a
shared responsibility across the Library.
Goals for the training programme

16. • Applying lessons in other
contexts - helping staff
match problems to
potential solutions
• Finding opportunities to
apply new skills
• Balancing depth with time
in class
• Finding digital tools for non-
Western materials; working
with non-textual collections
On-going challenges

17. • Software tools break/change
• Tempting to try to meet external
demand for our courses
• Digital Curators need to maintain own
skills and knowledge
– Digital Scholarship Reading Group - 1 hour,
once a month
– Hack and Yack - 2 hours, once a month
– Both are open to all
On-going challenges

18. Datasets and digital collections
Datasets about our collections
Bibliographic datasets relating to our
published and archival holdings
Datasets for content mining Content
suitable for use in text and data
mining research
Datasets for image analysis Image
collections suitable for large-scale
image-analysis-based research
Datasets from UK Web Archive Data
and API services available for
accessing UK Web Archive collections
Digital mapping Geospatial data,
cartographic applications, digital
aerial photography and scanned-in
historic map materials http://bl.uk/digital

19. "I was able to do in minutes with a
python code what I'd spent the last ten
years trying to do by hand!"
-Dr. Katrina Navickas, BL Labs Winner
2015
BL Labs competitions

20. BL Labs competitions

22. A bigger vision
https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/14598110338/
"The Utah Farmer: Devoted to Agriculture in the Rocky Mountain Region”, p250 (1913)

23. Thank you!
Questions?
Mia Ridge @mia_out
Digital Curator, British Library
digitalresearch@bl.uk @BL_DigiSchol