A talk at the DH Lab at the University of Exeter in February 2019.
The British Library's Digital Scholarship Training Programme provides colleagues with the space and support to
develop the necessary skills and knowledge to support emerging areas of modern scholarship. Their familiarity with the foundational concepts, methods and tools of digital scholarship in turn helps promote a spirit of innovation and creativity, encouraging digital initiatives within the Library and with external partners. Finally, the programme of events helps nourish and sustain an internal digital scholarship community of interest/practice.
In this talk, Digital Curator Dr. Mia Ridge will share some of the lessons the team have learnt about delivering Digital Scholarship training in a library environment since it began several years ago, and some of the challenges they still face.
Presentation delivered by Nancy Graham, chair of CoPILOT, as part of the 'Ooer-OERs! Using free, shared information literacy resources' event held at the University of Bradford, 24th June 2015, organised by the Yorkshire and Humberside division of the Academic and Research Libraries Group.
From the Cloud to the Reading Room: Mediating User Experience of Archival Col...CONUL Conference
Presented at the CONUL Conference, July 2015, Athlone, Ireland by Barry Houlihan, NUI Galway
Abstract
"Learning through encountering is a widening facet for archive collections and their users at present. Through teaching, independent research, online publication and exhibition of material as well of the digitised artefact, the integration of unique collections into the learning space is affording new opportunities and possibilities for projecting the archive to a new and widening user base. This is part of the commitment in developing user experience of learning through engagement in an embedded manner with unique archival collections.
From subject areas of theatre, literature, Northern Ireland conflict and society, the geography and culture of the West of Ireland, among others, this talk will explore the changing presence of archives as and in research from undergraduate to postgraduate and academic research and teaching, through digital and traditional means. Shifting methods of engagement, through cataloguing standards and access to finding aids, key-word cataloguing, digital access, linked-collections for research, outreach and advocacy, are all facilitating greater awareness of collections among researchers but also an awareness of the strategies and benefits of archival usage in research through various media. With such increasing volumes of material, data and modes of access, a greater emphasis must also come in mediating that deluge for the user.
Recent developments has seen the archives and archive service of the Hardiman Library become research partners with academic teaching, projects and planning but with the archivist as mediator between information content and user engagement. These interventions are key to ensuring relevancy of archives in research, at a time where we are witnessing a redefining of engagement Libraries and their services among users. Archive literacy, being the skillset of the researcher when encountering, navigating and utilising the collection content in varying media and format is also undergoing a radical change. This paper will address these current questions and issues and highlight the work of information professionals as curators of unique collections and the role of mediation between researcher and object.
"
Biography
Barry Houlihan is an archivist at the James Hardiman Library at National University of Ireland, Galway, where he has catalogued the archives of Professor Kevin Boyle, Human Rights Academic, Lawyer and Activist; the archive of Druid Theatre Company; the Galway Arts Festival, and others. He is a Project group member of the Abbey Theatre Digitisation Project. Barry’s interests include promoting new ways of engagement with archives, archives in research and digital access to collections. He is also currently working on a Phd focusing on the memory and archival record of theatre, politics and society in the 1960s and 1970s.”
Presentation delivered by Nancy Graham, chair of CoPILOT, as part of the 'Ooer-OERs! Using free, shared information literacy resources' event held at the University of Bradford, 24th June 2015, organised by the Yorkshire and Humberside division of the Academic and Research Libraries Group.
From the Cloud to the Reading Room: Mediating User Experience of Archival Col...CONUL Conference
Presented at the CONUL Conference, July 2015, Athlone, Ireland by Barry Houlihan, NUI Galway
Abstract
"Learning through encountering is a widening facet for archive collections and their users at present. Through teaching, independent research, online publication and exhibition of material as well of the digitised artefact, the integration of unique collections into the learning space is affording new opportunities and possibilities for projecting the archive to a new and widening user base. This is part of the commitment in developing user experience of learning through engagement in an embedded manner with unique archival collections.
From subject areas of theatre, literature, Northern Ireland conflict and society, the geography and culture of the West of Ireland, among others, this talk will explore the changing presence of archives as and in research from undergraduate to postgraduate and academic research and teaching, through digital and traditional means. Shifting methods of engagement, through cataloguing standards and access to finding aids, key-word cataloguing, digital access, linked-collections for research, outreach and advocacy, are all facilitating greater awareness of collections among researchers but also an awareness of the strategies and benefits of archival usage in research through various media. With such increasing volumes of material, data and modes of access, a greater emphasis must also come in mediating that deluge for the user.
Recent developments has seen the archives and archive service of the Hardiman Library become research partners with academic teaching, projects and planning but with the archivist as mediator between information content and user engagement. These interventions are key to ensuring relevancy of archives in research, at a time where we are witnessing a redefining of engagement Libraries and their services among users. Archive literacy, being the skillset of the researcher when encountering, navigating and utilising the collection content in varying media and format is also undergoing a radical change. This paper will address these current questions and issues and highlight the work of information professionals as curators of unique collections and the role of mediation between researcher and object.
"
Biography
Barry Houlihan is an archivist at the James Hardiman Library at National University of Ireland, Galway, where he has catalogued the archives of Professor Kevin Boyle, Human Rights Academic, Lawyer and Activist; the archive of Druid Theatre Company; the Galway Arts Festival, and others. He is a Project group member of the Abbey Theatre Digitisation Project. Barry’s interests include promoting new ways of engagement with archives, archives in research and digital access to collections. He is also currently working on a Phd focusing on the memory and archival record of theatre, politics and society in the 1960s and 1970s.”
Global Networked Digital Environment: How Libraries Shape the Future.UBC Library
Global Networked Digital Environment: How Libraries Shape the Future.
Presented by Ingrid Parent, President-elect of IFLA, at the Pacific Rim Digital Library Alliance Conference in Shanghai, October 21, 2010.
Working Internationally for Libraries Conference 2021: Workshop 02: Internati...CILIP
"ONE WORLD ONE LIBRARY NETWORK"
Working Internationally for Libraries Conference 2021
June 25, 2021
CILIP Working Internationally for Libraries Conference was a one-day virtual event supported by Arts Council England, in partnership with Libraries Connected, British Library, British Council, Carnegie UK Trust, CILIP International Libraries & Information Group, and CILIP Public & Mobile Libraries Group. The 2021 Conference explored ways of connecting with library services and sector professionals from across the world to inspire and inform local library services. Speakers from a diverse range of regions – UK, Europe, Canada, Africa, and the Middle East - shared best practices, new ideas, and successful examples of international working projects.
Recordings of the sessions are available here: https://vimeo.com/showcase/8656926
What are the key issues and opportunities in digital scholarship, and how sho...Stuart Dempster
Key elements of current and emergent academic practice(s) in the age of AI and machine learning, and how academic libraries can develop resources, people and institutional responses.
IFLA ARL Webinar Series: Academic Library Services during Covid 19IFLAAcademicandResea
Slides used by speakers at the IFLA ARL Webinar, Academic Library Services during COVID-19, held on 22 July 2020. The Webinar features 10 speakers from around the world, who share their institutional and national experiences during this COVID 19 period.
Review of the Working Internationally for Libraries Programme in a presentation to the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Libraries, Information and Knowledge on 30 November 2021
Working Internationally for Libraries Conference 2021: IFLA's vision of inter...CILIP
"ONE WORLD ONE LIBRARY NETWORK"
Working Internationally for Libraries Conference 2021
June 25, 2021
CILIP Working Internationally for Libraries Conference was a one-day virtual event supported by Arts Council England, in partnership with Libraries Connected, British Library, British Council, Carnegie UK Trust, CILIP International Libraries & Information Group, and CILIP Public & Mobile Libraries Group. The 2021 Conference explored ways of connecting with library services and sector professionals from across the world to inspire and inform local library services. Speakers from a diverse range of regions – UK, Europe, Canada, Africa, and the Middle East - shared best practices, new ideas, and successful examples of international working projects.
The recording of the session is available here: https://vimeo.com/577152889
Extending the Reach of Digital Preservation PracticeDigCurV
Presentation by Mary Molinaro, University of Kentucky Libraries at the DigCurV International Conference; Framing the digital curation curriculum
6- 7 May , 2013
Florence, Rome
Global Networked Digital Environment: How Libraries Shape the Future.UBC Library
Global Networked Digital Environment: How Libraries Shape the Future.
Presented by Ingrid Parent, President-elect of IFLA, at the Pacific Rim Digital Library Alliance Conference in Shanghai, October 21, 2010.
Working Internationally for Libraries Conference 2021: Workshop 02: Internati...CILIP
"ONE WORLD ONE LIBRARY NETWORK"
Working Internationally for Libraries Conference 2021
June 25, 2021
CILIP Working Internationally for Libraries Conference was a one-day virtual event supported by Arts Council England, in partnership with Libraries Connected, British Library, British Council, Carnegie UK Trust, CILIP International Libraries & Information Group, and CILIP Public & Mobile Libraries Group. The 2021 Conference explored ways of connecting with library services and sector professionals from across the world to inspire and inform local library services. Speakers from a diverse range of regions – UK, Europe, Canada, Africa, and the Middle East - shared best practices, new ideas, and successful examples of international working projects.
Recordings of the sessions are available here: https://vimeo.com/showcase/8656926
What are the key issues and opportunities in digital scholarship, and how sho...Stuart Dempster
Key elements of current and emergent academic practice(s) in the age of AI and machine learning, and how academic libraries can develop resources, people and institutional responses.
IFLA ARL Webinar Series: Academic Library Services during Covid 19IFLAAcademicandResea
Slides used by speakers at the IFLA ARL Webinar, Academic Library Services during COVID-19, held on 22 July 2020. The Webinar features 10 speakers from around the world, who share their institutional and national experiences during this COVID 19 period.
Review of the Working Internationally for Libraries Programme in a presentation to the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Libraries, Information and Knowledge on 30 November 2021
Working Internationally for Libraries Conference 2021: IFLA's vision of inter...CILIP
"ONE WORLD ONE LIBRARY NETWORK"
Working Internationally for Libraries Conference 2021
June 25, 2021
CILIP Working Internationally for Libraries Conference was a one-day virtual event supported by Arts Council England, in partnership with Libraries Connected, British Library, British Council, Carnegie UK Trust, CILIP International Libraries & Information Group, and CILIP Public & Mobile Libraries Group. The 2021 Conference explored ways of connecting with library services and sector professionals from across the world to inspire and inform local library services. Speakers from a diverse range of regions – UK, Europe, Canada, Africa, and the Middle East - shared best practices, new ideas, and successful examples of international working projects.
The recording of the session is available here: https://vimeo.com/577152889
Extending the Reach of Digital Preservation PracticeDigCurV
Presentation by Mary Molinaro, University of Kentucky Libraries at the DigCurV International Conference; Framing the digital curation curriculum
6- 7 May , 2013
Florence, Rome
Rhian James is Project Manager of the Wales at War project at the National Library of Wales.
Her presentation gives an overview of the broad range of activities and projects that run under the auspices of the Research Programme in Digital Collections at NLW.
101 This is Digital Scholarship Staff TrainingNora McGregor
Slides for our internal staff introduction to Digital Scholarship course. When does scholarship become ‘digital scholarship’? This course takes a thought-provoking look at how information technology has transformed research today. Touching on the growing application of computing in various research disciplines we’ll familiarize ourselves with the concepts, methods and tools that define digital scholarship and explore how we can best support digital scholars at British Library.
Cross-sector collaboration for digital museum and library projectsMia
I provide some examples of cross-sector collaboration from the UK, and include some examples of different models for international collaboration. Invited presentation for the Chinese Association of Museums, Taipei, Taiwan, August 2017
A Manifesto for the Digital Shift in Research LibrariesTorsten Reimer
A report from the Digital Shift working group for RLUK (Research Libraries UK) on the challenges libraries face with regards to the digital shift and how to overcome them. Presented at a virtual RLUK seminar on 18th May 2020.
Rethink research, illuminate history with the British LibraryMia
Join Dr Mia Ridge, Digital Curator for Western Heritage Collections at the British Library, to discover how research and technology can create a richer picture of our past. Living with Machines is a collaborative project between the Alan Turing Institute, universities and the British Library – home to the world’s most comprehensive research collection. Together, they are using data science and digital history methods to analyse millions of historical documents and understand the impact of mechanisation in the 19th century. Their initial approach has focused on specific regions like Yorkshire that will help tell us the story of industrialisation in Britain.
The 'Living with machines' project is a collaboration between the British Library and the Alan Turing Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. This presentation introduces the project and highlights some early explorations and work.
Festival of Maintenance talk: Apps, microsites and collections online: innova...Mia
Talk for the Festival of Maintenance in Liverpool https://festivalofmaintenance.org.uk/ My talk notes http://www.openobjects.org.uk/2019/09/festival-of-maintenance-talk-apps-microsites-and-collections-online-innovation-and-maintenance-in-digital-cultural-heritage/
Hopes, dreams and reality: crowdsourcing and the democratisation of knowledge...Mia
Crowdsourcing projects have generated millions of data points through volunteer contributions of classifications, tags and other information about cultural heritage and scientific collections. However, to what extent have crowdsourcing and citizen science projects democratised knowledge about the past within 'official' collections and knowledge management systems? And how would infrastructures and policies in cultural heritage organisations need to change to allow deeper integration with knowledge captured through citizen science projects?
Infrastructural Tensions: Infrastructure, Implementation, Policies
The event is a collaboration between Digital Humanities Uppsala, Uppsala University Library, the Department of Archives, Museums and Libraries (ALM), and Uppsala Forum on Democracy, Peace and Justice.
In search of the sweet spot: infrastructure at the intersection of cultural h...Mia
A short paper for a panel on 'Data Science & Digital Humanities: new collaborations, new opportunities and new complexities' at Digital Humanities 2019, Utrecht.
Living with Machines at The Past, Present and Future of Digital Scholarship w...Mia
Short paper on the Living with Machines project for a panel at the Digital Humanities 2019 conference in Utrecht, Netherlands. Living with Machines is a research project using data science with historical sources and questions at scale to rethink the impact of technology on the lives of ordinary 19thC people
A modest proposal: crowdsourcing in cultural heritage benefits us all.Mia
Projects like In the Spotlight http://playbills.libcrowds.com encourage people to pay close attention to historic playbills while transcribing text to help make them more discoverable. Crowdsourcing cultural heritage tasks can create new relationships between cultural organisations and the public, while creating moments of curiosity that help people understand the past and present. Isn't it time you tried crowdsourcing?
A provocation for the British Library Labs 'Building Library Labs around the world' event, with folk from national, state and university libraries with existing or planned digital 'Labs-style' teams.
Crowdsourcing at the British Library: lessons learnt and future directionsMia
Digital Humanities Congress, University of Sheffield, September 2018.
The British Library has been experimenting with crowdsourcing since it launched the Georeferencer (http://www.bl.uk/georeferencer/) in 2012. It launched an updated platform for crowdsourcing in late 2017. Currently the platform supports two projects, In the Spotlight (http://playbills.libcrowds.com/, transcribing information from the Library's historic collection of theatre playbills) and Convert-a-Card (https://www.libcrowds.com/collection/convertacard, converting printed card catalogues into digital records).
This presentation will provide a case study of the implementation of this crowdsourcing platform, considering how the design of behind-the-scenes processes such as metadata workflow, and visible outputs such as the user experience and conversations with participants, were informed by lessons learnt from past projects. The platform is integrated with new Library infrastructure that publishes images in IIIF (International Image Interoperability Framework, http://iiif.io/about/) and has pioneered the use of web annotations for crowdsourced data.
It will discuss how and why In the Spotlight was designed with a balance between productivity (the number of tasks completed) with enjoyment and opportunities for engagement (whether discussing interesting playbills on the forum or social media, or investigating aspects of theatre history) in mind. It will also look at the integration of crowdsourced data into the Library's catalogues, and how the project has changed in response to requests and feedback from participants.
The presentation will include a progress update on the project, and discuss how we applied best practices like usability testing and Europeana's Impact model (https://pro.europeana.eu/what-we-do/impact). It will finish with a preview of future plans for the platform, including the ability for library staff to build their own projects with digitised collections in compatible formats. Reducing the technical overhead for launching a pilot project could be immensely valuable - but how will we ensure that anyone starting a project understands that crowdsourcing is more about people than it is about technology?
Crowdsourcing 'In the Spotlight' at the British LibraryMia
Presentation for Discovery/Participation Panel: User Generated & Institutional Data Transcription projects at EuropeanaTech https://pro.europeana.eu/page/europeanatech-2018-programme
A talk for the CILIP MMIT group at their 'The wisdom of the crowd? Crowdsourcing for information professionals' event, Heritage Quay, University of Huddersfield, March 2018
Museums+Tech conference 2017: Museums and tech in a divided world, Imperial War Museum London
Friday November 3 2017
http://museumscomputergroup.org.uk/events/museumstech-2017/
Historical thinking in crowdsourcing and citizen history projectsMia
The TL;DR version: repeated exposure and active attention to primary materials can develop some historical skills; more learning happens through observing and participating in discussion.
Presentation for Creating Historical Knowledge Socially: New Approaches, Opportunities and Epistemological Implications of Undertaking Research with Citizen Scholars
Washington DC, October 2017
Abstract: This 20-minute presentation examines the extent to which crowdsourcing and 'citizen history' projects and discussion platforms enable and encourage the practice of historical thinking. It takes the definitions of historical thinking set out by scholars and institutional bodies and the American Historical Association's 'core competencies' for students in history courses and degree programs as cues for an extensive trace-ethnographic analysis of participant discourse on crowdsourcing and digital community history platforms. This analysis found evidence for the development of historical thinking, situated learning and collective knowledge creation through participation in online communities of practice. Crowdsourcing project forums support many of the behaviours considered typical of communities of practice, including problem solving, requests for information, seeking the experience of past behaviours, coordinating actions, documenting shared knowledge and experiences, and discussing developments. This paper draws on research undertaken for my 2015 PhD, Making digital history: The impact of digitality on public participation and scholarly practices in historical research, in which I explored the ways in which some crowdsourcing projects encourage deeper engagement with history or science, and the role of communities of practice in citizen history.
Connected heritage: How should Cultural Institutions Open and Connect Data?Mia
Keynote for the International Digital Culture Forum 2017, Taichung, Taiwan, August 2017
I approach the question by describing the mechanisms organisations have used to open and connect data, then I look at some of the positive outcomes that resulted from their actions. This is not a technical talk about different acronyms, it's about connecting people to our shared heritage.
Wish upon a star: making crowdsourcing in cultural heritage a realityMia
Keynote for the Digikult 2017 conference. The success of crowdsourcing projects that have transcribed, categorised, linked and researched millions of cultural heritage and scientific records has inspired others to try it their own organisations. We can look to 'star' projects for ideas, but what it's really like to run a crowdsourcing project?
For Beyond the Black Box, University of Edinburgh, February 2017
As the datasets used by humanists become ever larger and more readily accessible, the ability to render and interpret overwhelmingly large amounts of information in graphically literate ways has become an increasingly important part of the researcher’s skillset. In this workshop, participants will be introduced to the core principles of scholarly data visualisation and shown how to use a variety of visualisation tools.
Visualisations may sound like the opposite of a black box, as they display the data provided. However, aside from 'truthiness' of things on a screen, lots of invisible algorithmic decisions affect what appears on the screen. Data used in visualisations is increasingly generated algorithmically rather than manually. What choices is software making for you, and whose world view do they reflect? Algorithms are choices - if you can't read the source code or access the learned model, how can you understand them?
Introduction to information visualisation for humanities PhDsMia
Training workshop for the CHASE Arts and Humanities in the Digital Age programme. (
This session will give you an overview of a variety of techniques and tools available for data visualisation and analysis in the humanities. You will learn about common types of visualisations and the role of exploratory and explanatory visualisations, explore examples of scholarly visualisations, try some visualisation tools, and know where to find further information about analysing and building data visualisations.
Digitised Manuscripts and the British Library's new IIIF viewer Mia
The British Library's implementation of the IIIF-based Universal Viewer. Presentation for 'Digitised Hebrew Manuscripts: British Library and Beyond', London, November 2016
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.
Model Attribute Check Company Auto PropertyCeline George
In Odoo, the multi-company feature allows you to manage multiple companies within a single Odoo database instance. Each company can have its own configurations while still sharing common resources such as products, customers, and suppliers.
How to Split Bills in the Odoo 17 POS ModuleCeline George
Bills have a main role in point of sale procedure. It will help to track sales, handling payments and giving receipts to customers. Bill splitting also has an important role in POS. For example, If some friends come together for dinner and if they want to divide the bill then it is possible by POS bill splitting. This slide will show how to split bills in odoo 17 POS.
Ethnobotany and Ethnopharmacology:
Ethnobotany in herbal drug evaluation,
Impact of Ethnobotany in traditional medicine,
New development in herbals,
Bio-prospecting tools for drug discovery,
Role of Ethnopharmacology in drug evaluation,
Reverse Pharmacology.
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?
We all have good and bad thoughts from time to time and situation to situation. We are bombarded daily with spiraling thoughts(both negative and positive) creating all-consuming feel , making us difficult to manage with associated suffering. Good thoughts are like our Mob Signal (Positive thought) amidst noise(negative thought) in the atmosphere. Negative thoughts like noise outweigh positive thoughts. These thoughts often create unwanted confusion, trouble, stress and frustration in our mind as well as chaos in our physical world. Negative thoughts are also known as “distorted thinking”.
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.
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.
2024.06.01 Introducing a competency framework for languag learning materials ...
Enabling digital scholarship through staff training: the British Library's experience
1. Enabling digital scholarship
through staff training: the British
Library's experience
Dr Mia Ridge, Digital Curator, Western Heritage
@mia_out @BL_DigiSchol
2. www.bl.uk 2
Overview
• About the British Library
• About the Digital Scholarship team
• About the Training Programme
• Lessons learnt
• Next steps
• Questions and discussion
3. www.bl.uk 3
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 over 80,000
years to see the whole
collection
4. www.bl.uk
The British Library's Digital Scholarship team
4
Our mission is to enable the use of the British Library’s digital
collections for research, inspiration, creativity, and enjoyment.
Digital Research
Team
Endangered
Archives
Living with
Machines
BL
Labs
Connect and
share
Support digital
scholars
Agents for
change
Invest in our
staff
Innovate and
collaborate
5. www.bl.uk
How do we think about Digital Scholarship?
5
"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
6. www.bl.uk 6
The Digital Research Team
The Digital Research Team is a
cross-disciplinary mix of curators,
researchers, librarians and
programmers supporting the
creation and innovative use of
British Library's digital collections.
Neil Fitzgerald
Head of Digital
Research
Stella Wisdom
Contemporary
British
Nora McGregor
Europe &
Americas
Dr Mia Ridge
Western
Heritage
Dr Adi Keinan-
Schoonbaert
Asia & Africa
Dr Rossitza
Atanassova
Digitisation
Tom Derrick
2 Centuries of
Indian Print
7. www.bl.uk 7
We support new ways of exploring and
accessing our collections through…
• Working behind-the-scenes to support and improve processes for getting
content in digital form and online (e.g. the Universal Viewer)
• Enhancing digital
skills for BL staff (so
they can help
Readers)
• Collaborative projects
• Offering digital
research support and
guidance
• Events, competitions,
and awards (BL Labs)
• Outreach through our
blogs and social
media
https://twitter.com/AshaMarie18/status/1061925248940101632
9. www.bl.uk 9
In the beginning…
Launched as a two-year programme in
November 2012, with mostly external
trainers
Courses written specifically for curatorial
perspective and existing expertise
Initially developed 19 bespoke courses to
help us situate our collections and
expertise in the realm of digital research,
exploring opportunities and challenges.
By 2016, we'd delivered 88 courses to
over 400 staff members
10. www.bl.uk 10
Some early iterations of courses
• 101 What is Digital Scholarship?
• 103 Digitisation at British Library
• 104 Communicating our collections online
• 105 Crowdsourcing in Libraries, Museums and Cultural Heritage Institutions
• 107 Data Visualisation for Analysis in Scholarly Research
• and Digital Mapping
• 109 Information Integration: Mash-ups, API’s and The Semantic Web
• 110 Managing digital research information
• 114 Foundations in working with Digital Objects: From Images to A/V
• 116 Metadata for Electronic Resources: Dublin Core, METS, MODS, RDF, XML
• 118 Cleaning up Data
• 119 Programming in Libraries
11. www.bl.uk 11
Other courses in the back catalogue
• 102 Digital Collections at British Library
• 103 Digitisation at British Library
• 106 Text Encoding Initiative
• 108 Geo-referencing and Geocoding
• 111 Social Media
• 112 Working Collaboratively: The BL Wiki and Beyond
• 113 Presentation skills
• 115 Behind the Screen: Basics of the Web
• 117 Digital Storytelling
• 120 Content mining in digital scholarship
• 121 Copyright at the British Library
12. www.bl.uk 12
Training library staff in digital scholarship
Our (refreshed) mission:
Provide colleagues with the space and opportunity to delve into
and explore all that digital content and new technologies have to
offer in the research domain today.
Create a variety of opportunities for staff to develop necessary
skills and knowledge to support emerging areas of modern
scholarship.
13. www.bl.uk 13
Training library staff in digital scholarship
Measures of success:
Staff are familiar and conversant with the foundational concepts,
methods and tools of digital scholarship
Promote an environment and spirit of innovation and creativity.
Collaborative digital initiatives flourish across subject areas within
the Library as well as externally.
Nourish and sustain an internal digital scholarship community of
interest/practice across the organisation.
14. www.bl.uk 14
Formats
• Formal courses in the Digital Scholarship Training Programme
• 21st Century Curator speaker programme
• Digital Scholarship Reading Group
• Hack & Yack sessions
15. www.bl.uk 15
Recent 'Hack & Yacks'
• Recogito hands-on session
• Visualising Cultural Heritage
Collections with D3
• Gothic Novel Jam
• Deconstructing Digital Scholarship
Consultations in the Library
• Deconstructing Digital Scholarship Consultations in the Library
• How to match, compare and classify images with computer vision
• Python (with Jupyter Notebooks) for simple processing and visualisations of
data from In the Spotlight from the British Library
• Gothic Novel Jam
16. www.bl.uk 16
Recent reading group topics
• Participation in heritage crowdsourcing
• Data science or data humanities? Opportunities, barriers, and
rewards in digitally-led analysis of history, culture and society (an
excursion to a lecture)
• Digital Art History and the Computational Imagination
• Emerging Formats: Complex digital media and its impact on the
UK Legal Deposit Libraries
• You and AI – Just An Engineer: The Politics of AI (video)
• The Equivalence of “Close” And “Distant” Reading; Or, toward a
New Object for Data-Rich Literary History
17. www.bl.uk 17
Lessons learnt - what works well
• People appreciate the opportunities to meet the team and others
interested in digital scholarship
• Diaries are busy - shorter sessions can reach more people
• Matching talks with hands-on sessions
• 'Strands' of mixed mode modules delivered over time
• Student presenters can enliven a programme but there can be an
overhead before the event
• Including questions in general training needs survey
18. www.bl.uk 18
Lessons learnt - challenges
• Barriers when people go back to their desks - software installs,
time to experimentation and learning, accessing digitised sources
• We don't reach everyone
• Logistics (room bookings, managing booking requests) limit our
agility and time
• Need a consistent 'brand' to link different formats and topics
• We've lost an informal networking opportunity in not being able
to provide lunch
• Need a one-stop shop for listing upcoming opportunities
19. www.bl.uk 19
Introducing 'strands'
• Breaking day-long courses into shorter, multi-format modules
that combine to build attendees' knowledge of a particular topic
over time
• Can repeat individual sessions (e.g. 101) to meet demand
• Attendees in each session may be more engaged
• Modules are more easily updated or added 'just in time'
• Allows staff time to explore methods and tools between sessions
• Easier to include external experts
20. www.bl.uk 20
Course 120: Content mining for digital
scholarship with cultural heritage collections
Sessions have included:
• An Introduction to Machine Learning;
• Computational models for detecting semantic change in historical texts (Dr
Barbara McGillivray, Alan Turing Institute);
• Computer vision tools (Dr Giles Bergel, University of Oxford's Visual
Geometry Group);
• Jupyter Notebooks/Python for simple processing and visualisations of data
from In the Spotlight;
• Listening to the Crowd: Data Science to Understand the British Museum's
Visitors (Taha Yasseri, Turing/OII);
• Visualising cultural heritage collections (Olivia Fletcher Vane, Royal College of
Art);
• An Introduction to Corpus Linguistics for the Humanities (Ruth Byrne, BL /
Lancaster);
• Corpus Analysis with AntConc.
21. www.bl.uk 21
Next steps
• Improve how we capture feedback
– to improve decision-making about course content
– to demonstrate impact
• Conduct an overview of the digital humanities, digital scholarship
landscape and review our course offering
• Turn some of our courses in Library Carpentry workshops?
• Integrate material from Living with Machines project into the
Training Programme
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Have we enabled digital scholarship in the Library?
• Participants (and their managers) seem more likely to engage
with digital scholarship projects proposed by researchers
• Participants sometimes initiate discussions with external
presenters about applying their methods or tools
• Participants sometimes apply methods or tools to collections on
their own initiative
• A lot of activity and changed attitudes probably aren't visible to
us
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Regular events build
community?
• Hack & Yacks and the
Reading Group provide
spaces for staff to talk
amongst themselves
• They allow us to identify
'champions'
• Can we ask people to
quantify the benefits of
connections formed?
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Resources
• Digital Scholarship Staff Training Programme https://www.bl.uk/projects/digital-
scholarship-training-programme
• Ridge, Mia, ‘Introducing an Experimental Format for Learning about Content Mining for
Digital Scholarship’, British Library Digital Scholarship Blog, 2018
https://blogs.bl.uk/digital-scholarship/2018/12/introducing-an-experimental-format-
for-learning-about-content-mining-for-digital-scholarship.html
• Ridge, Mia. ‘What Do Deep Learning, Community Archives, Livy and the Politics of
Artefacts Have in Common?’ British Library Digital Scholarship Blog, 4 May 2018.
http://blogs.bl.uk/digital-scholarship/2018/05/what-do-deep-learning-community-
archives-livy-and-the-politics-of-artefacts-have-in-common.html.
• McGregor, Nora, Mia Ridge, Stella Wisdom, and Aquiles Alencar-Brayner. ‘The Digital
Scholarship Training Programme at British Library: Concluding Report & Future
Developments’. In Digital Humanities 2016: Conference Abstracts. Kraków: Jagiellonian
University & Pedagogical University, 2016. http://dh2016.adho.org/abstracts/178.
You can:
Explore a bigger body of material computationally - 'reading' thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of volumes of text, images or media files
See trends, patterns and relationships not apparent from close reading individual items, or gain a broad overview of a topic
Test an idea or hypothesis on a large dataset; generate classification data about people, places, concepts
Set up in 2010, the DS team was formed as a way of dedicating focus on the changing research landscape.
The Digital Research Team is a cross-disciplinary mix of curators, researchers, librarians and programmers supporting the creation and innovative use of British Library's digital collections.
Digital curators are embedded in collection areas, or joining the library as part of major digitisation projects.
When we began, had to include some really basic topics to enable more DS-focused topics
Hack&Yacks are usually self-guided tutorials we go through together in two hour sessions. Sometimes get external experts to lead them, but generally the idea is that we don't have to prepare ourselves to be 'the expert'. We can model how we learn and get past technical or intellectual issues.
A 'strand' is a new, flexible format for learning and maintaining skills, with training delivered through shorter modules that combine to build attendees’ knowledge of a particular topic over time. We can repeat individual modules – for example, a shorter ‘Introduction to’ session might run more often, or target people with some existing knowledge for more advanced sessions. I haven’t formally evaluated it but I suspect that the ability to pick and choose sessions means that attendees for each module are more engaged, which makes for a better session for everyone. We've seen a lot of uptake – in some cases the 40 or so places available go almost immediately - so offering shorter sessions seems to be working.
Designing courses as individual modules makes it easier to update individual sections as technologies and platforms change. This format has several other advantages: staff find it easier to attend hour-long modules, and they can try out methods on their own collections between sessions. It takes time for attendees to collect and prepare their own data for processing with digital methods (not to mention preparation time and complexity for the instructor), so we've stayed away from this in traditional workshops.
New topics can be introduced on a 'just in time' basis as new tools and techniques emerge. This seemed to address lots of issues I was having in putting together a new course on content mining. It also makes it easier to tackle a new subject than the established 5-6 hour format, as I can pilot short sessions and use the lessons learnt in planning the next module.
The modular format also means we can invite international experts and collaborators to give talks on their specialisms with relatively low organisational overhead, as we regularly run ‘21st Century Curatorship’ talks for staff. We can link relevant staff talks, or our monthly ‘Hack and Yack’ and Digital Scholarship Reading Groups sessions to specific strands.
‘Content mining (sometimes ‘text and data mining’) is a form of computational processing that uses automated analytical techniques to analyse text, images, audio-visual material, metadata and other forms of data for patterns, trends and other useful information.
Harder without informal networking opportunities like lunches, but hack and yacks and the reading group provide more space for people to talk amongst themselves
