The document discusses the British Library Labs, a department within the British Library that supports innovative projects using digitized and born digital cultural heritage collections. It provides an overview of the Labs' history, activities, and lessons learned. The Labs engages with researchers, artists, educators and entrepreneurs through competitions, projects, workshops and other events to support over 150 projects annually. It emphasizes that engagement starts with building relationships with people, not just focusing on technology.
The Author's Drift: scholarship, scale and societyPip Willcox
Why do we engage the public in research? Who is "the public"? What does successful engagement look like?
This talk presents some answers to that question, drawing on work from the Bodleian Libraries, the Oxford e-Research Centre, the University of Oxford's IT Services, and the HathiTrust Research Center.
The talk was the keynote at the Research and/as Engagement, a Royal Society of Edinburgh sponsored workshop, organized for Digital Humanities Network Scotland by the University of Edinburgh, 12 September 2014.
Supporting the Digital Scholar:Experiences from the British Library Labslabsbl
The presentation will first give a very brief overview of the Library and then tell you a number of ‘stories’ mostly from a Humanities perspective on how researchers did things in the past and how that is changing because of rapid developments in digital technology. With more and more digital content, data, tools and services being made available, researchers are able to ask questions they had never dreamed of before, share their findings in an open way and collaborate, some of them are becoming the ‘digital’ scholar.
It will bring back the story to the British Library, and how the digital scholar is changing the way we do things. It will then move on to the efforts of digitisation across the British Library, giving a whistle stop tour of some of the incredible digital collections we now have and highlight some of the challenges that we face given our historical origins, licensing and technical restrictions. Importantly, it will also try to address how we are trying to tackle some of these challenges. It will outline the work of Digital Scholarship department, created to support the changing research landscape, focusing particularly on the work on the Digital Research Team and that of British Library Labs, both of which sit in the same department. It will point out some of the surprising findings we have discovered and some of the lessons we have learned so far and what we are planning for the future. Finally, it will finish with some important final ‘take away’ messages and The Presentation will be asking you what excites you most about digital scholarship. Hopefully, if there is time, there will be an opportunity to take a few questions too.
The Author's Drift: scholarship, scale and societyPip Willcox
Why do we engage the public in research? Who is "the public"? What does successful engagement look like?
This talk presents some answers to that question, drawing on work from the Bodleian Libraries, the Oxford e-Research Centre, the University of Oxford's IT Services, and the HathiTrust Research Center.
The talk was the keynote at the Research and/as Engagement, a Royal Society of Edinburgh sponsored workshop, organized for Digital Humanities Network Scotland by the University of Edinburgh, 12 September 2014.
Supporting the Digital Scholar:Experiences from the British Library Labslabsbl
The presentation will first give a very brief overview of the Library and then tell you a number of ‘stories’ mostly from a Humanities perspective on how researchers did things in the past and how that is changing because of rapid developments in digital technology. With more and more digital content, data, tools and services being made available, researchers are able to ask questions they had never dreamed of before, share their findings in an open way and collaborate, some of them are becoming the ‘digital’ scholar.
It will bring back the story to the British Library, and how the digital scholar is changing the way we do things. It will then move on to the efforts of digitisation across the British Library, giving a whistle stop tour of some of the incredible digital collections we now have and highlight some of the challenges that we face given our historical origins, licensing and technical restrictions. Importantly, it will also try to address how we are trying to tackle some of these challenges. It will outline the work of Digital Scholarship department, created to support the changing research landscape, focusing particularly on the work on the Digital Research Team and that of British Library Labs, both of which sit in the same department. It will point out some of the surprising findings we have discovered and some of the lessons we have learned so far and what we are planning for the future. Finally, it will finish with some important final ‘take away’ messages and The Presentation will be asking you what excites you most about digital scholarship. Hopefully, if there is time, there will be an opportunity to take a few questions too.
The Public and Mobile Libraries Group report on the advocacy for UK public libraries activities 2007-2017. The report includes an overview of political, professional and public advocacy campaigns and initiatives of the period. The piece covers an insight into the activities of CILIP, SCL, British Library, Libraries Taskforce, and a number of proactive individuals, including Public Library News/
British Library Labs Presentation Given to British Library Stafflabsbl
Presentation given to British Library Staff as part of C21st Curatorship staff talks by Mahendra Mahey (British Library Labs Manager) and Stella Wisdom (Digital Curator)
An introduction to the British Library's digital collections, resources and partnerships. Presented at the 'Discovering Collections, Discovering Communities' 2015 conference (Salford, 13 October 2015)
Sustainable support for OER at the University of EdinburghNick Sheppard
Slides from a presentation by Lorna Campbell on 18 January 2022: A global challenge: digital and open education for inclusive societies
Lorna is a learning technology service manager at the University of Edinburgh’s Open Educational Resources (OER) Service. She is also a Trustee of Wikimedia UK and the Association for Learning Technology and has a longstanding personal commitment to supporting open knowledge and education. Her blog, Open World (http://lornamcampbell.org), features personal reflections on all aspects of open education, and she is an active member of the #femedtech network. You can find Lorna on twitter at @lornamcampbell.
A careers talk on librarianship roles within the government sector, presented to history students at the University of Leeds.
Written and presented by Carly Miller and Jenny Owens.
Presentation to the CILIP North West Member Network conference on "Engaging users - what's in the library?", looking at how to engage users and promote brand loyalty for all types of library
The public and mobile libraries group have constructed a presentation report on the advocacy for UK public libraries activities 2007-2017. The report includes an overview of political, professional and public advocacy campaigns and initiatives of the period. The piece covers an insight into the activities of the Chartered Institute of Library Information Professionals, the Society of Chief Librarians, British Library, the Government Libraries Taskforce, and a number of proactive individuals, including Public Library News, and was created primarily for international dissemination.
Using social media and quantitative metrics to engage the research communityNick Sheppard
The modern university Library comprises repositories, publishing platforms and social media and is central to the dissemination mission of the University. Recent progress towards ‘Open Access’ has enabled research to be more effectively disseminated via the internet and aggregated into an Institutional Repository, empowering institutions to disseminate their own research and monitor associated metrics. A repository is also an ideal home for grey literature and research data, where IPR is more likely to be retained by universities which are increasingly minting DOIs for this type of content, ensuring persistence and enabling (alternative) metrics. This case study will present a Library led social media initiative at the University of Leeds examining local challenges and presenting usage data from Altmetric.com, Twitter Analytics and IRUS-UK.
The University of Leeds is a research intensive Russell Group University with a well-developed ecosystem of research oriented Twitter accounts. These include both University branded accounts overseen by schools, faculties or research groups as well as a huge number of ‘personal’ accounts operated by individual staff or students. In 2012 an account focussed on research data was set up in the Library as part of the Roadmap project but was used only sporadically before being rebranded in 2017 and used more actively to engage with the research community, to promote both OA research papers and datasets.
Themes and challenges include quantitative metrics, institutional and departmental oversight of social media, operational implications and sustainability.
This is a short run through the activities of the Office of Scholarly Communication at the University of Cambridge presented to the Cambridge University Press Library Board meeting on 28 November 2016.
Library Connect Webinar | Fostering research community through library spaces...Library_Connect
In this March 31, 2016 webinar three experienced librarians explored outreach activities to engage various user groups, and how services and a physical space - like a research commons or makerspace - can enhance collaboration, interdisciplinarity and raise the profile of the library.
View the webinar at:
http://libraryconnect.elsevier.com/library-connect-webinars?commid=192865
Presenters:
Yvonne Nobis, Head of Science Information Services, Betty and Gordon Moore Library, University of Cambridge
Danianne Mizzy, Head of Kenan Science Information Services, Kenan Science Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Meris Mandernach, Associate Professor and Head of Research Services, University Libraries, The Ohio State University
Library Futures & the Importance of Understanding Communities of UsersChristine Madsen
In 2010 I finished a two year ethnographic study of that aimed at understanding how the digitization of rare texts is changing scholars’ work and in turn how it is changing their relationship with the library. I will present some highlights from the findings of that research and discuss more recent research to understand the future of libraries by understanding communities of users. In other words, what can we learn from Tibetan Buddhists, the Parakuyo Maasai, and the CTOs of our top technology companies about how to build the library of the future?
This presentation was the 2013 Breslauer Lecture at UCLA GSEIS.
Building Better GLAM Labs - Keynote Presentation at Simon Fraser Universitylabsbl
Presentation given by Mahendra Mahey, Manager of BL Labs at Simon Fraser University between 1030 - 1200, Monday 25 February, 2019.
See: https://www.lib.sfu.ca/help/publish/dh/dhil/bl-labs
For more details.
Building Better GLAM Labs - Opening talk at Museum Big Data Conference - UCL ...labsbl
Talk given on 30 April 2019, between 1500 - 1520 at the UCL Qatar Museum Big Data 1st Conference, UCL Qatar, given at the Auditorium, Qatar National Library.
The Public and Mobile Libraries Group report on the advocacy for UK public libraries activities 2007-2017. The report includes an overview of political, professional and public advocacy campaigns and initiatives of the period. The piece covers an insight into the activities of CILIP, SCL, British Library, Libraries Taskforce, and a number of proactive individuals, including Public Library News/
British Library Labs Presentation Given to British Library Stafflabsbl
Presentation given to British Library Staff as part of C21st Curatorship staff talks by Mahendra Mahey (British Library Labs Manager) and Stella Wisdom (Digital Curator)
An introduction to the British Library's digital collections, resources and partnerships. Presented at the 'Discovering Collections, Discovering Communities' 2015 conference (Salford, 13 October 2015)
Sustainable support for OER at the University of EdinburghNick Sheppard
Slides from a presentation by Lorna Campbell on 18 January 2022: A global challenge: digital and open education for inclusive societies
Lorna is a learning technology service manager at the University of Edinburgh’s Open Educational Resources (OER) Service. She is also a Trustee of Wikimedia UK and the Association for Learning Technology and has a longstanding personal commitment to supporting open knowledge and education. Her blog, Open World (http://lornamcampbell.org), features personal reflections on all aspects of open education, and she is an active member of the #femedtech network. You can find Lorna on twitter at @lornamcampbell.
A careers talk on librarianship roles within the government sector, presented to history students at the University of Leeds.
Written and presented by Carly Miller and Jenny Owens.
Presentation to the CILIP North West Member Network conference on "Engaging users - what's in the library?", looking at how to engage users and promote brand loyalty for all types of library
The public and mobile libraries group have constructed a presentation report on the advocacy for UK public libraries activities 2007-2017. The report includes an overview of political, professional and public advocacy campaigns and initiatives of the period. The piece covers an insight into the activities of the Chartered Institute of Library Information Professionals, the Society of Chief Librarians, British Library, the Government Libraries Taskforce, and a number of proactive individuals, including Public Library News, and was created primarily for international dissemination.
Using social media and quantitative metrics to engage the research communityNick Sheppard
The modern university Library comprises repositories, publishing platforms and social media and is central to the dissemination mission of the University. Recent progress towards ‘Open Access’ has enabled research to be more effectively disseminated via the internet and aggregated into an Institutional Repository, empowering institutions to disseminate their own research and monitor associated metrics. A repository is also an ideal home for grey literature and research data, where IPR is more likely to be retained by universities which are increasingly minting DOIs for this type of content, ensuring persistence and enabling (alternative) metrics. This case study will present a Library led social media initiative at the University of Leeds examining local challenges and presenting usage data from Altmetric.com, Twitter Analytics and IRUS-UK.
The University of Leeds is a research intensive Russell Group University with a well-developed ecosystem of research oriented Twitter accounts. These include both University branded accounts overseen by schools, faculties or research groups as well as a huge number of ‘personal’ accounts operated by individual staff or students. In 2012 an account focussed on research data was set up in the Library as part of the Roadmap project but was used only sporadically before being rebranded in 2017 and used more actively to engage with the research community, to promote both OA research papers and datasets.
Themes and challenges include quantitative metrics, institutional and departmental oversight of social media, operational implications and sustainability.
This is a short run through the activities of the Office of Scholarly Communication at the University of Cambridge presented to the Cambridge University Press Library Board meeting on 28 November 2016.
Library Connect Webinar | Fostering research community through library spaces...Library_Connect
In this March 31, 2016 webinar three experienced librarians explored outreach activities to engage various user groups, and how services and a physical space - like a research commons or makerspace - can enhance collaboration, interdisciplinarity and raise the profile of the library.
View the webinar at:
http://libraryconnect.elsevier.com/library-connect-webinars?commid=192865
Presenters:
Yvonne Nobis, Head of Science Information Services, Betty and Gordon Moore Library, University of Cambridge
Danianne Mizzy, Head of Kenan Science Information Services, Kenan Science Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Meris Mandernach, Associate Professor and Head of Research Services, University Libraries, The Ohio State University
Library Futures & the Importance of Understanding Communities of UsersChristine Madsen
In 2010 I finished a two year ethnographic study of that aimed at understanding how the digitization of rare texts is changing scholars’ work and in turn how it is changing their relationship with the library. I will present some highlights from the findings of that research and discuss more recent research to understand the future of libraries by understanding communities of users. In other words, what can we learn from Tibetan Buddhists, the Parakuyo Maasai, and the CTOs of our top technology companies about how to build the library of the future?
This presentation was the 2013 Breslauer Lecture at UCLA GSEIS.
Building Better GLAM Labs - Keynote Presentation at Simon Fraser Universitylabsbl
Presentation given by Mahendra Mahey, Manager of BL Labs at Simon Fraser University between 1030 - 1200, Monday 25 February, 2019.
See: https://www.lib.sfu.ca/help/publish/dh/dhil/bl-labs
For more details.
Building Better GLAM Labs - Opening talk at Museum Big Data Conference - UCL ...labsbl
Talk given on 30 April 2019, between 1500 - 1520 at the UCL Qatar Museum Big Data 1st Conference, UCL Qatar, given at the Auditorium, Qatar National Library.
BL Labs Presentation at Open Science Infrastructures for Big Cultural Datalabsbl
Presentation given in Plovdiv, 13 December 2018 by Mahendra Mahey from British LIbrary Labs.
Fostering Excellence in Scholarship with Big Cultural Heritage CollectionsInsights from British Library Labs
Mahendra Mahey, Manager of BL Labs
1630 - 1715, Thursday, 13th December 2018,
Fostering Excellence in Scholarship with Big CH Collections (in Humanities data and their research use session), Open Science Infrastructures for Big Cultural Data, International Advanced Masterclass,Fifth Floor Conference Room, Hotel Trimontium, Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
Working with the British Library’s Digital Collections & Data - Insights from...labsbl
Keynote presentation given by Mahendra Mahey at the Research Data Management in Digital Humanities International Conference, 17-18 April, 2018, Doha, UCL Qatar, room 1D02. Entitled: Working with the British Library’s Digital Collections & DataInsights from British Library Labs and an emerging role for Libraries (Keynote speech)
Digital Magical Mystery Tour - British Librarylabsbl
Presentation given by Mahendra Mahey, BL Labs Manager about the British Library and it's digital collections and how they have been used by the public.
British Library Labs Presentation at Elpub 2014, June 20, 2014labsbl
Key note presentation given at ElPub2014, June 20 about the Digital Scholarship department and the work of the Digital Research Team and British Library Labs.
Presentation to the National Science Library of the Chinese Academy of Scienceslabsbl
1100 - 1300, Thursday, 26th April 2018,
British Library Labs and Digital Scholarship at the British Library, Harley Room, British Library, St Pancras, London.
Presentation to the National Science Library of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
by Mahendra Mahey Manager of BL Labs
The Work of British Library Labs and Digital ScholarshipInsights from British Library Labs and an emerging role for Libraries
British Library Labs Roadshow - Sussex Humanities Lablabsbl
Presentation given by Mahendra Mahey, Manager of British Library Labs on Friday 5th of May, at Sussex Humanities Lab, 2017 as part of the BL Labs Roadshow 2017
More than just books - British Library Labs Presentation given at MSc Compute...labsbl
The British Library: More than just books
Exploring new ideas and methods to better understand the cultural and historic heritage held by the Library.
MSc CGE: Games Industry Seminar Series 2013-14
Computing, Room NAB 314, New Academic Building,
29 St James Street, Goldsmiths University of London
Mahendra Mahey
Manager of British Library Labs
Tuesday 4th of February 2014, 1400 - 1415
7th BL Labs Symposium (2019): 12_Digital Research team projects updatelabsbl
Neil Fitzgerald, Head of Digital Research, British Library
--
Highlights of some innovative recent and current projects in the Digital Research team at the British Library.
Mahendra Mahey, BL Labs Manager, British Library
--
This Award recognises an artistic or creative endeavour that has used the Library’s digital content to inspire, amaze and provoke.
Maja Maricevic, Head of Higher Education and Science, British Library
--
This Award recognises a current member of staff, or team, who has played a key role in an innovative project using the Library’s digital content or data.
7th BL Labs Symposium (2019): 08_An update on the ‘Living with machines’ projectlabsbl
Mia Ridge, Digital Curator and Co-Investigator for Living with machines, British Library
The 'Living with machines' project is a collaboration between the British Library and the Alan Turing Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence.
7th BL Labs Symposium (2019): 06_An overview of digital preservation at the B...labsbl
Maureen Pennock, Head of Digital Preservation, British Library
An overview of the challenges of preserving an ever-growing and complex set of digital collections and a presentation of the work of the Flashback project.
7th BL Labs Symposium (2019): 05_The Research Awardlabsbl
James Perkins, Research & Postgraduate Development Manager, British Library
This Award recognises a project or activity which demonstrates the development of new knowledge, research methods or tools, using the Library’s digital content.
7th BL Labs Symposium (2019): 04_The story of the GLAM Labs community and how...labsbl
Sophie-Carolin Wagner, Project Manager, Austrian National Library Labs, Austrian National Library
A report on the work to develop a global community of Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAM) Labs and the creation of a handbook for professionals wanting to set up, maintain and ensure digital innovation Labs thrive in their organisations.
Mahendra Mahey, BL Labs Manager, British Library
This Award celebrates quality learning experiences created for learners of any age and ability that use the Library's digital content.
Introduction to BL Labs and Reading 35,000 Books: The UCD Contagion Project ...labsbl
Presentation given by Mahendra Mahey at the Reading 35,000 Books: The UCD Contagion
Project and the British Library Digital Corpus event on 20 February 2019
A hands-on data exploration & challenge to become a derived data-set author o...labsbl
Mahendra Mahey, manager of British Library Labs (BL Labs) will examine some of the BL’s digital collections/data & discuss challenges he has had in making the BL's cultural heritage data available openly or onsite at the British Library.
Mahendra will invite delegates to explore data-sets at their leisure, setting a challenge for those who are interested, skilled in exploring, finding patterns and grouping data. They could become data-set authors/creators of derived data-sets, based on pre-existing digital collections/data provided on the day or already available on https://data.bl.uk.
The workshop will conclude with reflections from the delegates and possibly highlighting a number derived data-sets that were generated by participants on the day that could now potentially exist on https://data.bl.uk. If selected, these new derived data-sets will be attributed with the creators' / authors' details and each will have its own cite-able Digital Object Identifier (D.O.I). These new data-sets would then be available for reuse by any researcher in the world.
GUIDANCE FOR THIS WORKSHOP
We strongly recommend you come to this workshop with an appropriate device such as a laptop pre-installed with appropriate tools to analayse different kinds of data-sets, e.g. Microsoft Excel may work with smaller data-sets such as metadata (see other data exploration tools below). If you don't have one, and would still like to attend, please request to 'pair up' with someone who is willing to share and has already signed up.
Other data exploration tools include: Notepad++ (e.g. for viewing text and XML); Open Refine (e.g. for cleaning data); Tableau Public (e.g. for visualising data); Google Fusion Tables (e.g for visualising geo-spatial data); Spacy (e.g. for text and data mining), RStudio (an open source Statistical package), MATLAB (data analysis tool) & NLTK (Natural Language processing).
Please note that this workshop is NOT about training you in using any of these tools, just tools you may be already familiar with to explore and find patterns in our data.
Datatypes you may be examining in this workshop could include: .ZIP, .PDF, .TXT, .CSV, .TSV. .XLS, .XLSX, RDF, .nt, XML (TEI, ALTO and bespoke), .JSON, .JPG, .JPEG, .TIFF and .WARC
Please ensure you are able to read these files on your device before the workshop if you are interested in exploring them during our session.
Slides for session: http://goo.gl/
URL for specific data: http://
Mahendra Mahey tweets at @BL_Labs & @mahendra_mahey
Presentation given by Mahendra Mahey, Manager of BL Labs, 1400 - 1430, 2 July 2018
London Psychology Librarians Group Meeting
Dickins Room, Conference Centre,
British Library
Experiences and lessons learned through British Library Labs How have we eng...labsbl
Presentation by Mahendra Mahey, Manager of BL Labs.
1100 - 1130, Thursday, 17th May 2018,Part of Plenary Session ‘Cultural Innovation: experiences from the field’,
CAMP iC4: A Breeding Ground for Useful Innovation,
BASE Milano, Via Bergognone, 34, Milan, Italy
The Art Pastor's Guide to Sabbath | Steve ThomasonSteve Thomason
What is the purpose of the Sabbath Law in the Torah. It is interesting to compare how the context of the law shifts from Exodus to Deuteronomy. Who gets to rest, and why?
Instructions for Submissions thorugh G- Classroom.pptxJheel Barad
This presentation provides a briefing on how to upload submissions and documents in Google Classroom. It was prepared as part of an orientation for new Sainik School in-service teacher trainees. As a training officer, my goal is to ensure that you are comfortable and proficient with this essential tool for managing assignments and fostering student engagement.
Operation “Blue Star” is the only event in the history of Independent India where the state went into war with its own people. Even after about 40 years it is not clear if it was culmination of states anger over people of the region, a political game of power or start of dictatorial chapter in the democratic setup.
The people of Punjab felt alienated from main stream due to denial of their just demands during a long democratic struggle since independence. As it happen all over the word, it led to militant struggle with great loss of lives of military, police and civilian personnel. Killing of Indira Gandhi and massacre of innocent Sikhs in Delhi and other India cities was also associated with this movement.
Read| The latest issue of The Challenger is here! We are thrilled to announce that our school paper has qualified for the NATIONAL SCHOOLS PRESS CONFERENCE (NSPC) 2024. Thank you for your unwavering support and trust. Dive into the stories that made us stand out!
Palestine last event orientationfvgnh .pptxRaedMohamed3
An EFL lesson about the current events in Palestine. It is intended to be for intermediate students who wish to increase their listening skills through a short lesson in power point.
2024.06.01 Introducing a competency framework for languag learning materials ...Sandy Millin
http://sandymillin.wordpress.com/iateflwebinar2024
Published classroom materials form the basis of syllabuses, drive teacher professional development, and have a potentially huge influence on learners, teachers and education systems. All teachers also create their own materials, whether a few sentences on a blackboard, a highly-structured fully-realised online course, or anything in between. Despite this, the knowledge and skills needed to create effective language learning materials are rarely part of teacher training, and are mostly learnt by trial and error.
Knowledge and skills frameworks, generally called competency frameworks, for ELT teachers, trainers and managers have existed for a few years now. However, until I created one for my MA dissertation, there wasn’t one drawing together what we need to know and do to be able to effectively produce language learning materials.
This webinar will introduce you to my framework, highlighting the key competencies I identified from my research. It will also show how anybody involved in language teaching (any language, not just English!), teacher training, managing schools or developing language learning materials can benefit from using the framework.
Unit 8 - Information and Communication Technology (Paper I).pdfThiyagu K
This slides describes the basic concepts of ICT, basics of Email, Emerging Technology and Digital Initiatives in Education. This presentations aligns with the UGC Paper I syllabus.
Students, digital devices and success - Andreas Schleicher - 27 May 2024..pptxEduSkills OECD
Andreas Schleicher presents at the OECD webinar ‘Digital devices in schools: detrimental distraction or secret to success?’ on 27 May 2024. The presentation was based on findings from PISA 2022 results and the webinar helped launch the PISA in Focus ‘Managing screen time: How to protect and equip students against distraction’ https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/managing-screen-time_7c225af4-en and the OECD Education Policy Perspective ‘Students, digital devices and success’ can be found here - https://oe.cd/il/5yV
Students, digital devices and success - Andreas Schleicher - 27 May 2024..pptx
Building Better GLAM Labs - Keynote at University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada
1. 1
@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
http://www.bl.uk/projects/british-library-labs
Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the British Library
Running since March 2013
Building better ‘GLAM Labs'
Experiences and lessons learned from the British Library and around the world with Galleries, Libraries ,
Archives and Museums engaging with researchers, artists, educators and entrepreneurs who want to use
digitised and born digital cultural heritage collections and data for innovative projects.
Mahendra Mahey, Manager of British Library, British Library, London, UK.
Wednesday 27 February 2019, 1330 – 1500 (Keynote)
Talk given on behalf of the British Columbia Research Libraries Group, in the McPherson Library/Mearns Centre for Learning,
Digital Scholarship Commons, Room A308, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
2. 2
@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
http://bl.uk
For research, inspiration and enjoyment for everyone!
3. 3
@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
The British Library or ‘BL’
Inside the British Library
Space for 1200 readers, around 500,000 visitors per year
Building 37 uses low oxygen and robots
Reading room and delivery to London
Many items stored at Document Supply and Storage centre 48 hours away
Stockton-on-Tees
Author right to payment each time their books
are borrowed from public libraries
St Pancras, London, UK
Many books are stored 4 stories below the building
UK Legal Deposit Library – Reference only
Founded in 1973 though origins stem back to British Museum Library 1753
Boston-Spa
https://youtu.be/gJLIiF15wjQ?t=49
4. 4
@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Living Knowledge Vision (2015 – 2023)
Custodianship Research Business
Culture Learning International
To make our intellectual heritage accessible to everyone,
for research, inspiration and enjoyment and be the most open, creative and innovative institution of its
kind by 2023 (50 year anniversary).
Document:http://goo.gl/h41wW7 Speech:https://goo.gl/Py9uHK
Roly Keating (Chief Executive Officer of the British Library)
To make our intellectual heritage accessible to everyone,
for research, inspiration and enjoyment and be the most open, creative and innovative institution of its
kind by 2023 (50 year anniversary).
5. 5
@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Collections – not just books!
> 180*million items
> 0.8* m serial titles
> 8* m stamps
> 14* m books
> 6* m sound recordings
> 4* m maps
> 1.6* m musical scores
> 0.3* m manuscripts
> 60* m patents
King’s Library
*Estimates
6. 6
@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Have you got X?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Real_wuerzburg.jpg
Looking for Physical Content in the British Library
7. 7
@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
#bldigital
3 %* digitised
* estimate
Digital
Partnerships
Commercial & Other
Organisations
Bias in digitisation
Sample Generator
Over 720 Digital collections
15 %* Openly Licensed – most online
85 %* Available onsite only at the moment
Digitisation / Curating Born Digital
costs money, time, resources
http://www.turing.ac.uk
https://www.turing.ac.uk/research/research-projects/living-machines
Research driven digitisation
Heritage Made Digital
Born Digital
http://www.webarchive.org.uk/ukwa/
https://github.com/BL-Labs/sample_generator_datatools
What percentage/proportion of
our physical collections are
digitised?
8. 8
@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Digital access and reuse
• All Libraries need a process for agreeing
terms of access to content
• Many competing concerns
– Re-use
– Open research
– Copyright
– Licensing
– Ethics
– Revenue
• Large collection of books digitised by
funding through Microsoft an early win for
us in 2012 (More later about this collection)
9. 9
@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
The Story of the Digital Collection…
Digital
Collection
Curator
Who paid for the digitisation?
Who did the digitisation?
Technology used
Born digital?
Published
Unpublished
Where is it?
Access / API?
Can it still be accessed?
Generates income
Reputational risk in using?
Legalities /
Ethics / Morality
Politics when digitised, e.g. Brexit?
Personalities involved
Surprises (e.g. gaps)
Descriptive information
Old format not supported
What media was the
digitisation done from?
Is there any background documentation?
No Descriptive information
Inconsistent descriptive information
Still there?
Good to know the background ‘story’ of a Digital Collection
if you want to use it for projects …
10. 10
@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
READING
ROOM
NOT ONLINE
OPEN
Onsite @
British Library
£
Labs Residency Model
Competition / Digital Research Support Application
Challenges of access to Digital Collections at the BL
Over 720 Digital collections
15 %* Openly Licensed – most online
85 %* Available onsite only at the moment
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Have you got X?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Real_wuerzburg.jpg
Looking for Physical Content in the British Library
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Have you got X digitised / in digital form?
http://www.yorkmix.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/mr-simms-sweet-shoppe-york.jpg
Looking for Digitised / Digital Content in the BL
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Finding Open British Library Cultural Heritage Datasets
Collection Guides (234 as of 27/02/2019)
https://www.bl.uk/collection-guides/
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
Digital mapping
Geospatial data, cartographic applications, digital aerial photography and
scanned historic map materials
https://data.bl.uk
Download collections as zips, no API
Each dataset has a Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
can be referenced for research
Over 120 datasets available
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Playbills, Books, Newspapers
(includes OCR)
British Library Digital collections & Datasets
British National
Bibliography
http://bnb.data.bl.uk
http://sounds.bl.uk
http://dml.city.ac.uk/
Music (Recordings & Sheet) & Sounds
http://goo.gl/frSMJtBroadcast News (TV and Radio)
http://goo.gl/cwThHw
http://goo.gl/pBkisZhttp://goo.gl/E8aRyQ
Usage dataImages, Manuscripts & Maps
http://www.qdl.qa/
Qatar Digital Library
http://idp.bl.uk/
International
Dunhuang
Project
Maps
http://www.bl.uk/maps/
Hebrew Manuscripts
http://goo.gl/4sbCp9
Flickr &
Wikimedia Commons
https://goo.gl/LZRmaZ
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
https://goo.gl/qpCLlk
https://goo.gl/wMTS3Z
• Dialogue typically:
– ‘You are in luck’, we have what you are looking for!
– ‘You are in not luck’ but we have this instead…
– Engagement is constantly required to maintain interest in our
digital collections. No engagement no Lab!
• Tend to attract projects with ‘fuzzier’ boundaries
• Labs is open to more flexible, interdisciplinary / collaborative
research
• Artists / Creatives often find engagement with our digital
collections easier than scholars who often want a specific thing…
What engagement does the BL have with
people wanting use our digital content? #bldigital
3 %* digitised
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
The British Library's Digital Scholarship team
Our mission is to enable the use of the British Library’s digital
collections for research, inspiration, creativity, and enjoyment.
Digital Research
Team
Living with
Machines
BL
Labs
Connect and
share
Support digital
scholars
Agents for
change
Invest in our
staff
Innovate and
collaborate
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
How do we think about Digital Scholarship?
"Digital scholarship allows research
areas to be investigated in new
ways, using new tools, leading to
new discoveries and analysis to
generate new understanding."
Dr Adam Farquhar
Head of Digital Scholarship
British Library
Scale
Perspective
Speed
Combines methodologies from the
humanities & social science
disciplines with computational tools
provided by computing disciplines
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Digital Scholarship methods
Visualisations
Using Application Programming Interfaces
for datasets e.g. Metadata, Images
Transcribing
Annotation
Location based searching & Geo-tagging
Corpus analysis, Text Mining &
Natural Language Processing
Crowdsourcing
Human Computation
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Library Labs
– a space to experiment and innovate on-site and on-line
• Expert support and advice
• Essential equipment (software, hardware, storage, network)
• Essential ingredients (data, text, images)
• The ability to create, validate, capture, record, reproduce, archive, and share
results
• Community, tutorials, examples
• Integrated into reference and research workflows
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Differences in GLAM Labs
Horses for Courses
• Variation in
– Target users
– Funding sources
– Security models
• Surprises
– Many do not facilitate access to restricted
collections
– Many do not provide dedicated physical space
– Or simultaneous access to digital and physical
Get data here: https://goo.gl/66icov (you need a google
account, you can get one here: https://goo.gl/CGdUhY)
22. 22
@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Possible challenges GLAM Labs address
• Money spent on digitising / capturing digital – return on investment, how is
it being used and what value and impact it is having, especially when
opening collections for all.
• What digital collections are there that can be used openly and onsite and
how do we tell people?
• How do we explore the ‘feel’ / ‘shape’ of collections at scale?
• How do we find, explore, augment discovery in often ‘messy’ cultural
heritage data without public APIs?
• How do we discover, celebrate old culture & remix to create new culture?
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
We can learn how we are and should be supporting our users and this
therefore shapes the services we build and problems and projects we work
on, such as:
https://goo.gl/esqpRb
Why are we doing this? (1)
• Access, discovery to digital collections / data?
• Advice, guidance, technical support, training
• Services, Tools and Processes?
• Many more reasons…but learning where the gaps are
24. 24
@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
We help people ‘navigate’ their way through the ‘maze’ (sometimes) of the
Library to what they want to do…
Requires understanding the culture of the organisation
Researchers often need a translator/advocate for successful projects.
Learn to wear the spectacles of the organisation, read their vision/strategy documents!
https://goo.gl/62JnQT
Why are we doing this? (2)
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Our Audience and Collections
Audience
research &
Digital
interests
Digital
collections we
have
This is where Labs works
It starts with making connections, engagement, talking to people!
All Labs need to do this!
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Who do we work with?
Surprises of serendipity and creating luck ?
Researchers
https://goo.gl/WutNyi Artists
http://goo.gl/nNKhQ2
Librarians
Curators
https://goo.gl/9NWZUW
Software Developers
https://goo.gl/7QQ5Tf
Archivists
https://goo.gl/x7b4tg
Educators
https://goo.gl/qh01Mi
Working and Communicating
Entrepreneurs
https://goo.gl/Fx8RG7
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Competition
Awards
Projects
Tell us your ideas of what to do with our digital content (2013-16)
Show us what you have already done with our digital content in research,
artistic, commercial, learning and teaching, staff categories
Talk to us about working on collaborative projects
Tell us your ideas of what to do with our digital content
Engagement
• Roadshows
• Events
• Meetings
• Conversations
New! Digital Research Support
How?
28. 28
@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Phases of interaction at BL Labs
Submit idea for
support
Ideas always change
Once people experience the data
and culture of the organisation
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Labs Engagement 2013 - current
• Over 100 institutions visited
• Over 70,000 miles travelled around UK, USA, Canada,
Australia, Europe, Middle East and Asia!
• 100s presentations & over 100 workshops
• 1500 researchers / artists / entrepreneurs / educators / public
• Over 1000 expressions of interest to use collections
• 150 researchers, artists, entrepreneurs & educators supported
– potential case studies
• 200 TB of data via post
• 9 TB of data on data.bl.uk
• Over a billion views through Labs projects
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Engagement starts with people not technology!
Start a conversation, generate positive energy, encourage
fun/play/experimentation and try to support as many ideas as
is humanly possible, be kind, nice, want to share and
genuinely want to help people!
Early ‘BL Labs’ lessons 2
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Run Competitions
Good way to kick start engagement. Spread risk by having
more than one finalist. Ensure entrants own their own IP, but
all ideas are published. Good way to generate ideas for use.
Early ‘BL Labs’ lessons 3
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Start small but think big!
Start with small experiments, digital use can be really simple,
but OK to think big!
Early ‘BL Labs’ lessons 4
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Keep it open, simple and don’t overcomplicate
Early ‘BL Labs’ lessons 5
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Policies and processes for digital re-use are critical
Early ‘BL Labs’ lessons 6
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Reject perfectionism, enemy of rapid progress!
Good enough is sometimes…good enough!
(This can be difficult message for Libraries…metadata will never be perfect!)
Early ‘BL Labs’ lessons 8
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Services that allow useful exploration of cultural
heritage data are rare!
Early ‘BL Labs’ lessons 9
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Training or Collaboration?
Exploring data is difficult to do with large datasets
Often requires specific skills and capabilities that many of our
users don’t have.
Early ‘BL Labs’ lessons 10
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Celebrate the uses of digital collections!
Run Awards for those already using your digital materials,
great way to find who is doing what with your digital content.
Early ‘BL Labs’ lessons 11
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Success is rare, failure is common!
Success is sometimes all about the right people, place &
right time…so it won’t always happen…
embrace failure, learn from it!
Early ‘BL Labs’ lessons 12
44. 44
@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Example of useful pattern of research
for GLAM Labs
• Finding invisible / well hidden things in ‘messy’
historical data
• Unearthing / unlocking hidden histories & data to
stimulate new research
• Celebrating hidden histories / data creatively
through events, art & performance
https://goo.gl/vJ291F
https://goo.gl/mcpa8B
https://goo.gl/Ql0Bwz
Not the British Library!
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
https://goo.gl/oUNj5N
https://goo.gl/ImAUv4
Finding things in ‘messy’
Optical Character Recognised (OCR) text
Mrs Folly
• Clean up some manually
• Get human ‘ground truth’
• Write code to find things
reliably in it automatically
• Try code on messy content
• Tweak if necessary
• Digital ‘lasso’ around content
• Human sift through
Mrs Folly
An example pattern of research
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Smell of soup & Machine Learning
Who pays?
Thanks to Memo Akten (@memotv on twitter) for the inspiration!
https://goo.gl/toq4Bo
Nasreddin, 13th Century Turkish Sufi
http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/330/reading/smell1.htm
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
http://victorianhumour.tubmblr.com
Victorian Meme Machine (2014)
https://goo.gl/HMqDt3
Bob Nicholson
http://victorianhumour.tumblr.com/
Bob Nicholson interviewed on
BBC Radio 4 Making History Programme:
http://goo.gl/fmV9ep
And telling jokes to the public:
http://goo.gl/xIDRhz
Bob obtained further funding from his university
Looking for more collaborations
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GRgj7Q5OM0
Rob Walker, Victorian Mother-in-law Jokes
Victorian Comedy Night, 7 Nov 2016
Learnt about access paths
to digital collections
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Katrina Navickas (2015)
Political Meetings Mapper
http://politicalmeetingsmapper.co.uk
https://goo.gl/Qq78Oa
Labs Symposium 2015
https://goo.gl/BSA3be
Interview 2015
The Chartist Newspaper
http://goo.gl/vOLSnH
Chartist Monster Meeting
Chartists Walking Tour and
Re-enactment London
Learnt that domain knowledge
reduces noise
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Bringing History to Life to engage a wider audience!
https://youtu.be/0lx0CL_dsQs?t=132
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Black Abolitionist Performances & their
Presence in Britain (2016) – Hannah-Rose Murray
Frederick
Douglass
Ellen
Craft
Josiah
Henson
Ida B
Wells
A Performance by
Joe Williams &
Martelle Edinborough
http://frederickdouglassinbritain.com/
Started to implement
Machine Learning Techniques
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Microsoft Books…Our Dream Collection!!!
What can65,000
books tell us?
Image: Artwork by Alicia Martin
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Practice what you preach!
Creating our dream example to inspire others
• The Labs team needed to run our own experiments...to understand our users
– ‘Eating own dog food’
• One idea from hack event in June 2013 from Matt Prior looks promising…
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Scissors and books – a match made in heaven?
RELAX Librarians!
It’s the digital version…
Done algorithmically via OCR process, details here:
https://goo.gl/jke4sy
https://goo.gl/PVLB1B
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Worked better for female faces than men’s
Press
http://mechanicalcurator.tumblr.com
Posts image every 30 minutes
http://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/
1,020,418 images
need tagging!
Creative uses of images
Face recognition
Algorithms based on photos
Mechanical Curator
with an algorithmic brain
(Circles, Squares and Slanty etc)
http://goo.gl/qPPgxX
Internal IT / Wikimedia
Flickr Commons
Individual URL & API
Snipping out images
from 65,000 Digitised Books*
https://goo.gl/FgZ4HM
Work @ BL by Ben O’Steen, Labs & Digital Research Team*Matt Prior - http://goo.gl/j29Tnx
Tumblr
*Estimates
>1000,000,000* views
>17,500,000* tags
Since Dec 2013
>More demand to see
physical items
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Tagging a million images
Iterative Crowdsourcing
http://goo.gl/j6fxac
Cardiff University’s
Lost Visions Project
http://www.metadatagames.org/
Metadata Games
James Heald
Mario Klingemann
Chico 45
Use computational methods
Human Tagger
Top British Library Flickr Commons Taggers
18 hard core taggers
How to reward and keep motivated?
Average for ‘crowd’ is 1 tag per person
Mobile games for ‘Ships’, ‘Covers’ and ‘Portraits’ Interface for tagging
60. 60
@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Adam Crymble: Crowdsource Arcade
http://goo.gl/LBfJ4W
http://goo.gl/OH9pOZ
https://goo.gl/7z0j8p
30 mins talk
Labs Symposium (2015)
https://goo.gl/SSRsdd
5 min interview (2015)
http://goo.gl/0APpE8
Game Jam
Using Arcade Games
to help Tag images
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Special Jury’s Prize (2015)
James Heald – Wikimedia and Map work
https://goo.gl/WYZCB2
http://goo.gl/HNQq5e
https://goo.gl/VPgffL
https://commons.wikimedia.org/
https://goo.gl/djtm1b
Labs Symposium (2015)Geotagging maps
50,000 Maps
Found in Flickr 1 million
Human & Computational Tagging
& Community engagement
Geo-referencing work
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
SherlockNet: Karen Wang, Luda Zhao and Brian Do
Using Convolutional Neural Networks to Automatically Tag and Caption
the British Library Flickr Commons 1 million Image Collection
12 categories
>15.5 million tags added
>100,000 captions
bit.ly/sherlocknet
Pooled surrounding
OCR text on page
from similar images
Used Microsoft COCO (photographs) &
British Museum Prints and Drawings
collections as training sets.
Tags Captions
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Visibility – What happened to our Flickr images?
Understanding value / impact of making the BL’s data open / in the public domain
Peter Balman developed an analytics dashboard for the Library showing what is
happening to our open Images
Number one use was?
Challenge details: http://goo.gl/Hb6l4A
65. 65
@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
David Normal - Artist
https://youtu.be/Q3SBxO34Zlc
‘It was beyond my wildest dreams’
70. 70
@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Late August / Early September 2014
Four of these
surrounded the
Burning Man in
Nevada Desert
Crossroads of Curiosity
@ Burning Man
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Let’s have a party!
Exhibited from
June to Nov 2015
20th June 2015
Music mix by DJ Yoda using British Library Sounds: https://goo.gl/z3k4JT
Images from Burning Man and Flickr
brought into the Poet’s Circle
Physical
DigitalDigital
Physical
72. 72
@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
http://goo.gl/dM8ieA
Tragic Looking Women
44 Men who Look 44
(Notice the direction faces)
A Hat on the Ground
Spells trouble
Mario Klingemann – Code Artist
Our first Artistic Award winner!
73. 73
@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Mario Klingemann – AI Portraits
The Butcher’s Son
2018 LUMEN Prize winner
https://lumenprize.com/a-i-portrait-scoops-gold/
https://goo.gl/ggpw1n
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Hey there Young Sailor – from Malaysia – Ling Low
Ling Low 2016 – Hey there Young Sailor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcOP1E5bRE0
VIMEO.COM/SWEETANDLOWFILMS
@SWEETNLOWFILMS ON INSTAGRAM
@SWEETNLOWLING ON TWITTER
The Impatient Sisters
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Imaginary Cities
Exhibition 2019 (Michael Takeo Magruder)
An artistic exploration seeking to create provocative fictional cityscapes for the Information Age
from the British Library’s digital collection of historic urban maps
Virtual Reality with Unity 3D
Exhibition: 4 April to 14 July 2019
77. 77
@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Michael Takeo Magruder – Artist Residency
https://youtu.be/hUWhc_nLyZU?t=208
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Why this presentation?
• GLAM Labs are emerging around the world
• We share common goals to
– Understand the value of a digital Lab for GLAMs
– Share what we know and learn from others!
– Explore differences in approaches
– Build a support network
– Build better GLAM Labs
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
We want you to join us if you work in GLAM Labs!
Next event is in Copenhagen, 4-5 March 2019, see programme: https://goo.gl/xNRxaS
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Outcomes of GLAM Labs network
•Make existing or planned GLAM Labs be the best they can be
•Increase our joint understanding
•Build a supportive, kind, generous caring network
•Tell the world what we do and what you do!
82. 82
@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Many miles to go…
Thanks to:
Eleanor Cooper (0.5) BL Labs
Adam Farquhar (Principal Investigator)
Alumini
Ben O’Steen – Tech Lead
Hana Lewis (0.5) BL Labs Project Officer
Digital Scholarship team at the BL
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
http://www.bl.uk/projects/british-library-labs
Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the British Library
84. 84
@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Thank you!
British Columbia Research Libraries for inviting me and supporting this trip, University of
Victoria for hosting and supporting this trip and especially Scott Johnston from the
McPherson Library, University of Victoria for helping organising this trip!
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
In honour of…
my Canadian Indian/Punjabi family (past and
present)…who settled in Vancouver and Victoria
…from the early 1960s via India & Fiji
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@BL_Labs @mahendra_mahey @uvic @uviclib @britishlibrary labs@bl.uk
Questions?
Prompt Question
I didn’t understand…. Can you tell me more about…
Why did you… I am not sure about…
What if… Why didn’t you…
What’s the best thing about… What was the worst thing…
If you could have your time again, … How did you…
I am not sure I agree about… What was the biggest challenge…
What was the most successful thing about… Who did…
Editor's Notes
Morning everyone.
<CLICK>
I’m Mahendra Mahey, from the British Library in London, England, ‘Hello’. I am here to tell you my personal story about the experiences and lessons I’ve had working for my institution as well as with other Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums or ‘GLAMS’ at National, State, Public, University organisations and charitable and commercial organisations around the world. My story will focus particularly on how we have engaged with researchers, artists, educators and entrepreneurs from school children to adults who have used digitised and born digital cultural heritage collections and data to inspire them to create innovative, fun and inspiring projects. I would love it if my experiences can help other organisations build better ‘GLAM’ Labs, but I am also here to learn too from you.
<CLICK>
For the last 6 years, I have been running ‘British Library Labs’ a digital Laboratory to encourage anyone to experiment with our vast, incredible, sometimes totally unique and mind blowing digital collections and data. Our work has been generously funded over these years by the Andrew W. Mellon foundation and the British Library. We are in fact waiting for news any day now to see if the Library will be moving our work into its core business on a long term basis.
<CLICK>
During and after my presentation, please feel free to use twitter to amplify anything that resonates with you. My slides include much more information than I will have time to talk about, including links for you to delve deeper into the subject. On the right hand side in the footer there is a link to download all my slides, this will appear on all my slides. Please feel free to reuse them but it would great if you could attribute me and the Library when you do.
My presentation will last about an hour. I will do my best to keep your attention. If there are any questions, something springs to mind, please make a note as. I will take questions at the end of my presentation, though I may ask you some quick ones along the way.
So like all stories, lets start at the beginning and let me take you on my personal journey.
I have always loved Libraries. They are places to time travel, to get lost and captivated. They take us on adventures in our minds and give us an experience that the web simply cannot give. The digital cannot replicate the tactile and physical experience of touching a book or looking at a manuscript for instance.
<CLICK>
They allow us explore vast stores of information that are not simply available on the web and national libraries in some way have a responsibility to capture our nations’ memories when we are long gone and turned to dust. They hold the creative potential to inspire us. They can change us, and they can change our world as well as future generations to come.
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The British Library’s mission is to support research, to inspire and enable enjoyment for everyone in the world.
The origins of the British Library stem back to the beginnings of the British museum in 1753, and it’s Library forms the foundations of our vast collection today. It would take another 200 years and an act of parliament before the British Library was born legally in 1973 and then another 24 years before our London collection was transferred from the British Museum to its current building at St Pancras which you can see, where around 20% of our physical items are stored.
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Designed by Colin St John Wilson, part of it is designed to look like a ship. In fact, many have said the Library represents a ship of knowledge sailing though a gothic landscape perhaps provided by the backdrop of the St Pancras Renaissance hotel.
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Incidentally, the hotel is a place of history itself. This where the Spice girls, ‘wannabe video’ was filmed, a song incidentally that is one of the most instantly recognisable studies have shown, back then it was called the St Pancras Grand.
The Library is one of 5 legal deposit reference libraries in the UK, it’s not a lending library. Whilst we acquire items through purchase or gifts, much of the collection has been built up through legal deposit. That is, by law, a copy of every UK and Ireland publication must be given to the British Library automatically with around 3 million physical items added each year. In 2013, legal deposit was extended to cover non-print material which means by law we take in digitally published items as well. This includes regular mass crawls of the entire UK web domain as well as ebooks, ejournals etc which means our digital content is rapidly beginning to out grow our physical collections as our digital items number billions of webpages for example.
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The building in London can sit 1,200 researchers at any one time across 5 reading rooms, we get around half a million visitors per year.
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Medium and long term requested items are held at Boston Spa in Yorkshire in a low oxygen warehouse, using robot to retrieve items. Boston Spa also has a reading room too where you can request items. In total, the library has nearly 1000 km of shelving, growing by 12 km every year.
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The British Library manages the UK public lending right, that is a living author’s right to payment/royalty each time their books are borrowed from public libraries.
Roly Keating our CEO, launched his vision for the Library in 2015. Whilst most people understand the Library’s role is as a custodian of knowledge it is also one of the largest research library’s on the planet and we carry out our own research. Our vision states our purpose is to make our intellectual heritage accessible to everyone for research, inspiration and enjoyment for everyone and be the most open, creative and innovative institution of its kind by it’s 50th anniversary.
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To achieve this, we also help Businesses grow through a national network of Business and Intellectual Property centres (BIPC) offering IP advice, access to huge amounts of resources such as business intelligence, patents as well as events and training, we also engage in significant commercial activity through our commercial services.
We are also a cultural heritage organisation and have an ambitious programme of cultural activities to include exhibitions such as Harry Potter: History of Magic and host spectacular events during the day and when the library is closed concerts, performances, and soon even an Algorave, look it up!
We have a range of activities to support learning such as onsite and online courses for school children to adults and other activities around the local community in London as well as UK regionally.
Finally, we work with partners internationally on a range of projects to advance knowledge and mutual understanding.
The key to working with us on collaborative projects is to understand the way we see the world. In fact, we try to ensure that our requests for collaboration are prioritised and closely aligned to our vision. I would encourage you to delve deeper into our vision, especially if you would like to collaborate with us, it’s actually really fascinating read and it has helped me really understand the complex place where I work.
The picture you can see is inside the main building in London, it’s the King’s Library – King George the Third’s personal library, Mad King George! Sometimes known as the ‘stack’, I walk past this everyday and it gives me a sense of awe and reminds that the collections the British Library have are truly staggering and almost impossible to comprehend.
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We currently estimate them to exceed <click>180 million items, representing every age of written civilisation and every known language. Our archives now contain the earliest surviving printed book in the world, the Diamond Sutra, written in Chinese and dating from 868 AD….only around 8% of our collections are books and as you can see we have so much more, please note the numbers are only really guesses as to exactly what we do have. If you saw 5 items a day it would take you over 80,000 years to see the whole collection.
For me, this is what it is like trying to find a physical item at the Library. It feels like a huge hypermarket, or perhaps even a factory or warehouse. It stocks a random assortment of things and if you ask the assistants they can tell you about things that are simply not visible on the shelves in huge storage facilities.
Moving on to our digital collections which is where my work largely sits. What percentage/proportion of our physical collections are digitised?
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What surprises many people is that only an estimated 3% of our physical holding are digitised. This is because digitisation costs time and money and we have to achieve this through partnerships with commercial and other philanthropic organisations.
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Through one of the first BL Labs project, ‘Sample Generator’ we discovered that our digital collections are not truly representative of our physical collections. There will be all sorts of reasons why certain items get digitised and others do not. In reality, all our collections be them digital or physical have selection biases. Our collections are hundreds of years of decisions made by people as to which items to buy, keep and which ones to discard.
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In terms of licensing and using/reusing digital collections, a Lab like ours has further challenges. Out of our over 720 digital collections, only around 15% have an open license. The remainder are only available onsite at the moment. This is in part because many legacy digitisation projects didn’t always consider licensing when items were digitised. Trying to retrospectively establish rights and licensing on previously digitised collections costs time and money.
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As a National Library, we have been collecting born digital items for over many decades. We are the home of the UK Web Archive that periodically captures billions of UK websites to keep for posterity and research and we are the home of the Alan Turing institute centre for AI and data science where we are an active research partner. For example, Living with Machines is a five-year £9.2 million research project that will take a fresh look at the well-known history of the Industrial Revolution using data-driven approaches.
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A new digitisation programme Heritage Made Digital is trying to learn from past digitisation projects, especially on digitising collections based on research demand.
Since 2012, we have developed a more systematic approach for agreeing terms of access to digital collections and data. What’s important to understand that the process is sometimes subject to competing concerns such as reuse, open research, licensing, ethics, revenue generation.
What’s important to understand is that if you really want to work with our digital collections, it sometimes pays to learn the ‘back story’ of how the collection came about, this was a really early and important lesson I learned. Knowing it, can have a significant impact on what you might want to do with it. On the screen you can see many factors. I simply haven’t got time to go into them all, but perhaps the most important one is the last one. Is there a human being around in the organisation who can tell you about the collection, as communicating with them may be the quickest way to learn more about the digital collection you want to work with. Often, they will have access to important information that isn’t written down.
As a Labs manager, I faced a significant challenge of how we would enable those who want to access to our 85% of digital collections that are only available onsite at the moment. If we look at this, we can see onsite at the Library may mean that the digital materials are only available in the reading room on a specific PC, or that the materials are still on their original storage media and may need obsolete equipment to access them or they still are as yet to be transferred onto a more modern system.
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Some digital materials are only available through payment
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Only a small fraction of digital materials are in the shiny happy carefree open web (more about how to access these later)
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What we developed to tackle this situation was to develop a ‘Residency Model’ initially through an annual competition that we ran and now this has evolved in application process where researcher’s can apply to carry out digital research onsite at the British Library. These researchers in residence have special access to digital collections that our regular readers do not have. Access is strictly controlled depending what they would like to access and what they want to do with the materials.
So remember this? What is it like looking for digital collections at the British Library?
It can often feel like this…It’s much smaller, we have some free stuff, some can only be consumed on site, some you need to buy. If you speak to shop keeper, they may be able to get you to see what’s under the counter, because they couldn’t display it. You might be able to get special permission to get a look in the warehouse at the back of the shop which has even more goodies there. If you are looking for vegetables you have come to the wrong shop!
How do you find our open cultural heritage collections? On way is to use our collection guides which offer subject pathways into our collections, each guide will have a section non what’s available digitally if at all.
I haven’t got time to go into all our digital collections. Here is a small snap shot, which you are welcome to explore at your leisure at a later date, there are lots of links on this slide. The important thing to note is that it’s not just digitised books we have. It’s also playbills, magazines, newspapers, images, manuscripts, maps, usage data, catalogue data, broadcast news on TV and radio, sounds, music, sheet music.
What actual engagement do we have when we speak to people wanting to use our digital content? Well first of all people think you are a waling catalogue? And secondly, remember we only have around 3% of physical stuff digitised?
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‘You are in luck’, we have what you are looking for! Or
‘You are in not luck’ but we have this instead
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Engagement is constantly required to maintain interest in our digital collections. No engagement no Lab!
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We tend to attract projects with ‘fuzzier’ research boundaries.
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We have a tendency to work on more flexible, interdisciplinary and collaborative research proposals.
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Artists / Creatives often find engagement with our digital collections easier than scholars who often want a specific thing…
I haven’t got time to go into detail about this is slide, but these are the kinds of things we were hoping researchers would do with our digital collections, especially things that would be very difficult to do manually!
We then brought this to the British Library!
We would love you to experiment with our digital collections.