British Library Labs Presentation at the OU

http://labs.bl.uk 1#bl_labs [email protected] by thed Andrew Mellon Foundation

Exploring Digital Collections and Data: Innovative Experiments and Future Opportunities at the British Library,Monday 13th of April, 2015Open University

Mahendra Mahey Manager of British Library Labs

http://labs.bl.uk 2#bl_labs [email protected]

How Labs works…

Audience

idea

Experiment OutputsBL DataOther 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 [email protected]

Building Bridges…

• Addressing the gap between researchers and the data

• Technical bridges between data and researchers

• ‘Planning permission’, working with curators, making sure things are built to time, relations to the locals, several stakeholders

http://labs.bl.uk 4#bl_labs [email protected]

Digital Scholarship

Digital Research

Access & Reuse Group

©

Developers/ Technical

Staff

Universities & widere.g. companies, start-ups,

independent scholars, artists, etc.

Stakeholders involved in Labs

United KingdomThe World

BL Labs

Curators / Researchers

DigitalContent

Advisory Board

Project Board

British Library

Researchers

http://labs.bl.uk 5#bl_labs [email protected]

The Role of Labs

Labs is as much as being a space in which new projects and approaches can be bench-tested; but is important as a fragment of an ongoing negotiation about the role of the institutions of memory and knowing. And getting that role right is imperative…

Professor Tim Hitchcock, Labs Symposium ,2 November 2014

http://labs.bl.uk 6#bl_labs [email protected]

Digital is changing research

Data broken downrecombined and

duplicatedImage: Tower of Babble, Book Sculpture by Brian Dettmer

http://labs.bl.uk 7#bl_labs [email protected]

The Digital Scholar

Digital

NetworkedOpen

Scholar that employs digital, networked and open approaches to demonstrate their specialism.

http://labs.bl.uk 8#bl_labs [email protected]

Digital research methods

http://labs.bl.uk/Launch+Event (has some examples from researchers)

Corpus analysis toolsText 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 9#bl_labs [email protected]

CompetitionTell us your ideas of what to do with our digital

content

AwardsShow us what you have done with our digital

content

http://labs.bl.uk 10#bl_labs [email protected]

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 11#bl_labs [email protected]

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 12#bl_labs [email protected]

Pieter Francois:Sample Generator

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK80Jy0ijkAMore from Pieter Later…

http://labs.bl.uk 13#bl_labs [email protected]

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 14#bl_labs [email protected]

YouTube: http://goo.gl/mBTlk2

Bob Nicholson:Victorian Meme Machine

http://labs.bl.uk 15#bl_labs [email protected]

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 16#bl_labs [email protected]

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 [email protected]

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 [email protected]

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 [email protected]

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 20#bl_labs [email protected]

Sifting throughBritish 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

We have over 400 digital collections and many are not

listed

http://labs.bl.uk 21#bl_labs [email protected]

British National BibliographyUK Web Archive Data19th Century Books

Environmental SoundsText-mining of

electronic journals

Book ordering and anonymised reader

data

Resonance FM10 year CommunityArts Radio Show

Datasets, Books / Text, Images / Music, Maps, Sounds, Multimedia

http://labs.bl.uk/Digital+Collectionshttp://data.bl.uk in phase 2

http://labs.bl.uk 22#bl_labs [email protected]

Access to our data

Wireless Access PointEthernet Cable

u:opendatap:opendata

u:guestp:guest

10.0.0.1For a guide:http://goo.gl/78ITT0

Or Hand out…

opendata

http://labs.bl.uk 23#bl_labs [email protected]

Mini NAS guide - http://goo.gl/78ITT0

http://labs.bl.uk 24#bl_labs [email protected]

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

• Explore! If you want large amount contact us!

http://labs.bl.uk 25#bl_labs [email protected]

It’s messy but fascinating!

http://labs.bl.uk 26#bl_labs [email protected]

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…

• Mechanical Curator and Flickr Images…

• 20 June 2015, Crossroads of Curiosity: The British Library Meets BurningMan

http://labs.bl.uk 27#bl_labs [email protected]

David Normal:Crossroad of Curiosity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3SBxO34Zlc

http://labs.bl.uk 28#bl_labs [email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]