Transcript
http://labs.bl.uk 1 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk
Funded by thed Andrew Mellon Foundation
Exploring Digital Collections and Data: Innovative
Experiments and Future Opportunities at the British
Library, Third Round Table
Thursday 2nd of April, 2015
University of Edinburgh / Digital Humanities
Network Scotland
Mahendra Mahey Manager of British Library Labs
http://labs.bl.uk 2 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk
How Labs works…
Audience
idea
Experiment Outputs BL Data
Other
Data
idea
No
idea
Dynamic interaction with data,
and experimentation means
ideas change, get reshaped etc.
idea
Competition Events
Projects
Awards
http://labs.bl.uk 3 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk
Building Bridges…
• Technical bridges between data and researchers - Ben
• ‘Planning permission’, working with curators, making sure
things are built to time, relations to the locals, several
stakeholders…Mahendra / Ben
http://labs.bl.uk 4 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk
Digital
Scholarship
Digital
Research
Access &
Reuse Group
©
Developers/
Technical
Staff
Universities & wider
e.g. companies, start-ups,
independent scholars,
artists, etc.
Stakeholders involved in Labs
United Kingdom The World
BL Labs
Curators /
Researchers
Digital
Content
Advisory
Board
Project
Board
British Library
Researchers
http://labs.bl.uk 5 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk
Digital is changing research
Data broken down
recombined and
duplicated Image: Tower of Babble, Book Sculpture by Brian Dettmer
http://labs.bl.uk 6 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk
The Digital Scholar
Digital
Networked Open
Scholar that employs digital, networked and open
approaches to demonstrate their specialism.
http://labs.bl.uk 7 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk
Digital research methods
http://labs.bl.uk/Launch+Event (has some examples from researchers)
Corpus analysis tools
Text Mining
Visualisations
Location based searching
Geotagging
Annotation
Natural Language
Processing
Using Application Programming Interfaces for
datasets e.g. Metadata, Images
Transcribing
Crowdsourcing /
Human Computation
http://labs.bl.uk 8 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk
Previous Competition Winners
Desmond Schmidt
Text to Image Linking Tool - TILT
Mixing the Library,
Information Interaction and the DJ
Dan Norton
Victorian Meme Machine - VMM
Bob Nicholson
Sample Generator
Pieter Francois Anna Gerber
http://labs.bl.uk 9 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk
Dan Norton: Mixing the Library:
The Disc Jockey & the Digital Collection
http://www.tompro.co.uk
http://www.ablab.org/shetland
http://www.ablab.org/pd/di/
Prototype design
Annotation
Preview ‘item’
Selected ‘right’
channel ‘item’
Selected ‘left’
channel ‘item’ Collection ‘stalks’ made of ‘items’. Each ‘item’ is a URL.
The order of the ‘items’ can be ‘shuffled’ and sent to the ‘left’ or ‘right’ channels
‘Play back’ of ‘items’ (Blue)
and annotations (Yellow)
Living Lab: Library of the Future, see: http://alturl.com/284zw
http://labs.bl.uk 10 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk
Pieter Francois:
Sample Generator
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK80Jy0ijkA
http://labs.bl.uk 11 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk
Anna Gerber and Desmond Schmidt:
Text to Image Linking Tool (TILT)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl4bjZSJ4cY&feature=youtu.be
http://labs.bl.uk 12 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk
YouTube: http://goo.gl/mBTlk2
Bob Nicholson:
Victorian Meme Machine
http://labs.bl.uk 13 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk
Tell us your ideas – Competition
Show us what you have done - Awards
http://labs.bl.uk 14 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk
Competition 2015
• http://labs.bl.uk
• International competition closes April 30th 2015
• Think of an idea of what to do with our data
• We choose two and work with them as
researchers in ‘residence from’ June to end of
October 2015 (expenses paid up to £3600)
• Showcase work on November 2 and win prize of
up to £3000
http://labs.bl.uk 15 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk
Awards 2015
• Work that uses our digital collections
• Recognition of outstanding work in one of three
areas:
Research, Creativity and Entrepreneurship
• Closing date 14th of September 2015
• Shortlist Monday 12th of October 2015
• Winners announced on November 2, 2015, £500
per category.
http://labs.bl.uk 16 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk
Why work with the British Library? > 150 million items!!
> Fish and Chip Fridays
> Legacy
> Kudos
> Work with Curators
> Staff level access
> CV
> Pursue interests
> Help shape BL
King’s Library
http://labs.bl.uk 17 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk
Tips for competition (1)
•Look at previous winning examples or
those that were shortlisted for an idea of
style, word length etc.
•Communicate with us
•Don’t leave it too late!
http://labs.bl.uk 18 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk
Tips for competition (2)
• Look at the judging criteria…research question,
technical, curatorial and legal factors
• Think of ‘invisible’ criteria – what’s good for the
BL other researchers
• Publicity, Useful, Wider applicability
• Be realistic in your plan – only four months
• Look at the data if you can before you submit!
http://labs.bl.uk 19 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk
Sifting through
British Library Digital Collections
Available
only in
Reading
Rooms due
to ©
Available on
site only at
the moment
due to ©
Digital but
not online –
various
storage
devices
Available only onsite,
(at the moment), local events,
researchers in residence,
remote access where possible
Digital &
online
British Library
online
behind
paywall
http://labs.bl.uk 20 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk
British National Bibliography UK Web Archive Data 19th Century Books
Environmental Sounds Text-mining of
electronic journals
Book ordering and
anonymised reader
data
Resonance FM
10 year Community
Arts Radio Show
Datasets, Books / Text, Images /
Music, Maps, Sounds, Multimedia http://labs.bl.uk/Digital+Collections
http://data.bl.uk in phase 2
http://labs.bl.uk 21 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk
Access to our data
Wireless Access Point
Ethernet Cable
u:opendata
p:opendata
u:guest
p:guest
10.0.0.1 For a guide:
http://goo.gl/78ITT0
Or Hand out…
opendata
http://labs.bl.uk 22 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk
What’s on the Mini NAS?
• British National Bibliography – 3.5 million records
• 90,000 Playbills – 1602 – 1902
• ALTO XML for OCR of 65,000 volumes, 22 million pages
mostly from the 19th Century
• 1 million images snipped from books put on Flickr
• 70,000 tagged images
http://labs.bl.uk 23 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk
It’s messy but fascinating!
http://labs.bl.uk 24 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk
Labs not just a competition!
• Collaboration in many other projects
– 3 Big Data Humanities Data AHRC Projects, National
Endowment of Humanities, Visibility tool – Peter
Balman, Big Data Experiment, Working with
Artists…
• 20 June 2015, Crossroads of Curiosity: The
British Library Meets Burning Man
• Mechanical Curator and Flickr Images…(see
Ben’s Talk)
http://labs.bl.uk 25 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk
Explore, Play and Grab!
mahendra.mahey@bl.uk
labs@bl.uk
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