Elag2015 ivory tower

Exploring British Design

From Ivory Tower to People Power 15/04/2023

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Jane Stevenson, JiscPete Johnston, JiscTom Hart, Jisc

Catherine Moriarty, Brighton Design ArchivesAnna Kisby Compton, Brighton Design Archives

15/04/2023

Title of presentation (Go to ‘View’ menu > ‘Header and Footer…’ to edit the footers on this slide) 2


»AHRC: “Digital Transformations aims to exploit the potential of digital technologies to transform research in the arts and humanities”

»Archives Hub: aggregator of archive descriptions

»Brighton Design Archives, the University of Brighton

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Project Aims

»Exploring Britain's design history by involving information professionals, historians and researchers

»Moving away from traditional collection-level archival descriptions towards more inter-connectivity

»Enabling researchers to explore and connect people, subjects, and events.

»Using the XML standard, Encoded Archival Context - Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families (EAC-CPF)

»Creating high-quality bespoke name authority records for British designers and making these openly available for further utilisation

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The Ivory Tower

Or “Ignorance is Bliss”

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People Power

Or, “Once you introduce people, things are a lot more complicated”

Flickr: nolnet, https://www.flickr.com/photos/nolnet/5502831713/

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Student workshops

»We asked focus groups of postgraduate students:› How do you research?

»We gave them an event, person or building to think about and asked them to chart their research paths

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Research Paths: results

» Google is the most common starting point

» There is often a strong visual emphasis to research

» It is common to utilise the references listed in Wikipedia

» The library is one part of a diverse landscape; library searches can produce ‘meaningless results’ (too many results; relevance not clear)

» Online research: immediacy but issues of trust, results may not be very specific, obscure sources may be hidden

» Personal habits and past experience play a large part

» Research (i) means to an end (ii) an important (enjoyable!) process

» Serendipity is valued – browsing the library shelves is a good example

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Student workshops

»We asked a group of postgraduate students:› Think about websites and what you like

and dislike about them

»We showed them some sites and discussed them

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http://va.goodformandspectacle.com/

http://va.goodformandspectacle.com/

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Student workshops

»Students did not like sites that seemed patronising

»They liked the ‘explore’ features

»They talked about discovery beyond what the site appeared to provide

»They tended to ask about whether they could search for ‘x’ or ‘y’ – something relevant to their own particular research interests, e.g. gender studieshttp://blog.archiveshub.ac.uk/category/exploring-british-design/

http://blog.archiveshub.ac.uk/category/exploring-british-design/

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Documenting Archives

»An archive is described through a collection description

»One archive = one document describing the archive

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From search box…

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17

Collection

Person

Place Organisation

Image

Collection

Person

Place Organisation

Image

Collection

Person

Place Organisation

Image

Search:

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Collection

Collection

Person

Organisation

…to search result

From A to B,From B to C,And then from C you get to D.But this does not enable youTo get to C from A or Q

Collection

Person

Person

A

B

C

Place

Collection

Person

Person

Event

Date

Q

Occupatio

n

?

?

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Person

Collection

Person

Collection

Collection

Person

Place Organisation

Image

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Person

Collection

Collection

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Person

Person

Person

Person

Org

Org

Collection

Collection

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http://socialarchive.iath.virginia.edu/

http://socialarchive.iath.virginia.edu/

http://socialarchive.iath.virginia.edu/ark:/99166/w66m35nm



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Or, “Beating a Path through the Dense Dark Undergrowth is Hard Work”

Any thing can be a focus for a user/application

»Archival materials

»Persons, organisations

»Places

»Events

»Relations

»Objects

AgentBiography

Event

TimePeriod

Chronology

Place

ThingRelationship

ArchivalResource

“Thing”

Bibliographic

Resource

(Object, Artwork, Design)

AgentRelationship

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Data sources

»Bringing together data from different sources› Archives Hub data› Hand crafted data created for the project

– chronologies – relationships – relationship type

› Hard to create this data any other way › Looked at other sources (Design Museum)

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EAC-CPF

»EAC-CPF – XML format for organisations/persons/families

»Data went beyond what is supported by EAC-CPF› images linked to agents (people) and events› ‘see also’

»Formats can provide rigour but they can constrain

»EAC-CPF essentially for data sharing – provide export

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Tools

»We didn’t find suitable robust tools for data creation

»xEAC – good functionality (VIAF lookup) but glitches› didn’t seem to support whole EAC standard › couldn’t go beyond EAC limitations

»Variations in our data were always likely to challenge available tools

»“tidy datasets are all alike but every messy dataset is messy in its own way"

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Entities and Events

»Go beyond ‘find records to match x query’

»Focus was on person, organisation & events› matches through various criteria

»We do not have standards where events are foregrounded

»EAC-CPF treats events as secondary

Archives

Hub

SNAC

Partial EAC XML

EAC

XML

Search/Get

Create/Edit

CSVGoogleSheets

EACfromHubO.py

Search/Extract

Partial EAC XML

RDF

RDF

Geo dataConvert Store

CSV

Application(s)

Full EAC XML

API

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Observations

» Lack of tools

» Data variations and inconsistencies› Tools are looking for consistency – i.e. is this person the

same as that person, if so I can link them› Hand-crafted means rich data but hard to ensure

consistency› Archives Hub data is full of variations

» Responsive development requires flexibilty and it isn’t easy!

» So many decisions about data structures - what’s in, what’s out

» Not enough resource….

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Observations»Could we have done it differently?

› Maybe a different set of technologies, e.g. take time to learn about elastic search

› Maybe prioritising things differently – easy to say in hindsight

»Too many ideas can be a dangerous thing!

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Expanding Our Focus

»Record = about one person/organisation?

»No! In reality it is about many people, organisations, places and events

»Small scale but multiple connections meant our approach was strained (x80 people = 800 entities)› e.g. If Maxwell Fry went to X art school then we have

information about that art school, even if its just that he attended it (but as it is a focus, we can add more connections)

»A record focus is a narrow focus; it does not bring to the fore all these different entities

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Exploring British Design….Website coming soon

Thank you.

Elag2015 ivory tower

Education

title of presentation

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research paths

research i

british design ahrc

clear online research

britains design history

university of brighton