The British Library Digital Research Team supports the creation and use of the library's digital collections through various initiatives: 1) It works to digitize the library's vast print collections and make digital content available online through projects involving mass digitization, fundraising, and crowdsourcing transcription. 2) The team defines digital research as using computational methods like data visualization, mining, and crowdsourcing to answer research questions or challenge theories. 3) It engages the public through projects like the UK SoundMap, which crowdsources audio recordings to document environmental sounds across Britain.

1. Doing Digital Research
@ British Library
An intro to the Digital Research Team
Aquiles Alencar-Brayner
Digital Curator
@AquilesBrayner

2. www.bl.uk 2
The British Library is the
national library
of the UK.
By law we receive a copy of
every publication
produced in the UK and
Ireland.
If you saw 5 items a day it
would take you 80,000
years to see the whole
collection

3. www.bl.uk 3
Over 150 Million items
are stored in London and in
Yorkshire
But…the Library is
becoming as much a
place full of data as it is
a place full of physical stuff,
and there is a growing
community of users who
see it that way.
http://www.bl.uk/aboutus/quickinfo/facts/

4. www.bl.uk 4www.bl.uk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tp4y-

5. www.bl.uk 5
Meet the Digital Research Team
The Digital Research Team is a cross-
disciplinary mix of curators, researchers,
librarians and technologists supporting
the creation and innovative use of British
Library's digital collections.

6. www.bl.uk 6www.bl.uk
Living knowledge: six core purposes

7. www.bl.uk 7
Custodianship: Getting content in digital
format
• Transforming print
catalogue records into
digital (retroconversion)
• Example: c750,000 printed
books held in Asian &
African Collections are
listed only in hard-copy
catalogues.
• AAC Department is
tackling this through
innovative digitisation/
crowdsourcing approach
http://www.libcrowds.com/

8. www.bl.uk 8
Getting content in digital form
• Mass Digitisation Private/Public Partnerships (Google)
• Large Fundraising Campaigns (#SaveOurSounds)
• Research Grants (Two Centuries Indian Print)
• Preservation of at risk formats (Degrading microfilms)
• Non-Print Legal Deposit Acquisitions (UK Web Archive)
• See: http://www.bl.uk/help/initiate-a-new-digitisation-project-
with-the-british-library

9. www.bl.uk 9
How we define Digital Research
Using computational methods
either to answer existing research
questions or to challenge existing
theoretical paradigms…. Geotagging
Data Visualisation
Data Mining
Georeferencing
Digital Mapping
Crowdsourcing
Text mining
Collaboration

10. www.bl.uk 10www.bl.uk
Defining Digital Research
Using computational methods
either to answer existing research
questions or to challenge existing
theoretical paradigms….
Machine learning
Data Visualisation
Data Mining
Georeferencing
Digital Mapping
Crowdsourcing
Text mining
Collaboration

11. www.bl.uk 11
Getting Content Online
• Images published on Flickr
• https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary
• Wikimedia Synoptic Index
• Search Interface: BL 1 Million Images

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Collaborations, Competitions & Awards
http://www.bl.uk/projects/british-library-labs

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2015 Winner: Political Meetings Mapper
“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
5,519 meetings discovered in 462 towns and villages across the UK!
http://www.bl.uk/case-studies/political-meetings-mapper

15. www.bl.uk 15
Business, culture, learning:
Collaborations, Competitions & Awards…
https://vimeo.com/92272538
http://gamecity.org/alices-adventures-off-the-map-winners-announced/

16. www.bl.uk 16
Public engagement: UK SoundMap
• In 2009 British Library sound archive staff began tests
for a new kind of field recording project to aggregate
user-generated digital audio content using mobile
phones. Named the UK SoundMap, the project
represents a radical departure from the more
traditional, curator-led professional archival practices
we were used to.
• The UK SoundMap uses an informal community of
mobile phone users (via Audioboo) to capture and
describe their environmental sounds, then enable
near-instant public sharing on a dedicated website: in
effect, contributors as curator-publishers.
• http://sounds.bl.uk/Sound-Maps/UK-Soundmap

17. www.bl.uk 17
Georeferencer
The British Library began a project to
crowdsource the georeferencing of its
scanned historic mapping in 2011 by
partnering with Klokan Technologies.
Over 8,000 maps have already been
"placed" by participants checked for
accuracy and approved for reviewers.
We are currently on the sixth release,
which features over 50,000 maps from
the 17th, 18th, and 19th-century book
illustrations on Flickr
http://www.bl.uk/maps/
Video explanation:
https://vimeo.com/36419466

18. www.bl.uk 18
International: Endangered Archives
Programme
• http://eap.bl.uk/

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Getting in touch
Web: http://www.bl.uk/subjects/digital-scholarship
Blog: http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digital-scholarship/
Email: digitalresearch@bl.uk
Twitter: #bldigital