Digitising Hansard

Edward WoodDirector of Information Management

House of Commons16.6.08

digitising Hansard

• digitising Hansard: scanning and OCR• the policy context• database and front end

Hansard

• the official report of debates in Parliament• actually an unofficial private enterprise at first• “nationalised” in 1909• early reports written in the third person• eventually developed into a (nearly) verbatim

account• volumes from 1803 – 2005 were digitised• nearly 3 million pages

“though not strictly verbatim, [it] is substantially the verbatim report, with repetitions and redundancies omitted and with obvious mistakes corrected, but [...] on the other hand leaves out nothing that adds to the meaning of the speech or illustrates the argument.”

why digitise?

• enable preservation• conservation is expensive• increase access• increase usability• improve business processes• re-use physical storage space• costs have fallen significantly• quality improving steadily

preservation vs. conservation

conservationdirect intervention to prevent/make good damage to materials

preservationa broader term than conservation. It includes all managerial and financial considerations including storage and accommodation provision, staffing levels, policies, techniques, and methods involved in preserving library and archive materials and the information contained therein

preservation

• originals printed on poor quality paper• starting to deteriorate• reduce wear and tear from daily use• keep in a controlled environment• conservation is expensive

improve access• internal

– extensive day to day business use across a very large site

• public– national heritage and birthright– disposal by libraries– international interest

increase usability• search• print• share• novel uses/mash-ups

quality of digitisation techniques

improving steadily

costs

• costs have fallen significantly• alternative funding models• reduce physical storage needs

– dispose of surplus copies– locate in less valuable space

• but beware the hidden costs…

ongoing costs

• developing a front-end and database• hosting• storing images• digital preservation• format migration

alternatives

• microfilm• conservation

• facsimile

why not leave it to the big boys?

in a word, control• subject matter• quality• value added• use

funding models

• self-funding• commercial funding• joint funding• grants

doing the work

• In house or contractor?• method

– image only– re-keying (single, double, triple...)– OCR (optical character recognition)– image plus text – metadata capture– manual intervention increases quality and costs!

scanning from...

• microfilm• loose originals• bound originals• dis-bound originals

OCR

• how accurate does it need to be?• mass vs batch capture • double or triple compare• diminishing returns

QA (quality assurance)

• automate where possible• contractor

– 100% proof reading

• client– heavy sampling of images– 1% sampling of text

• third party?

the need for a policy framework

• Hansard was the first major digitisation project in the UK parliament

• an earlier project to digitise Local and Private Acts captured images only

• we needed a digitisation policy for parliament to ensure consistency and learning from experience

policy aims

• ensure that individual projects:– take into account the wider information context both

inside and outside Parliament– deliver their target benefits– offer value for money

• ensure the resources created can be:– exploited fully– used for as long as is required

policy scope

• publications• photographs• archival documents• business records

policy principles

• digitisation needs to be seen as an integral part of the information work carried out by parliament

• use of appropriate technical standards• scan once for many purposes• business cases should take account of all

relevant costs

selection criteria

• measurable user demand (for public use)• business need (for internal use)• the potential for learning and educational use• cost and the availability of other resources• technical considerations • the uniqueness of the items • conservation requirements• intellectual property rights and copyright issues • the availability of digitised versions of the same material

elsewhere• the potential for revenue raising • the feasibility of long-term preservation, where required

other aspects of the policy

• the delivery method will be planned at the outset• the preservation master will be an

uncompressed TIFF file• metadata will be created, to support resource

discovery, use, storage and digital preservation• we will adopt international standards where

possible• we will work with partners where possible

developing a digitisation strategy

• a project board has been created• an integral part of an online parliamentary

history programme for parliament• will use the criteria set out in the digitisation

policy to prioritise future digitisation work

practical guidelines

• guidelines have been developed for all parts of parliament which need to create digitised assets:– a checklist for doing the work– glossary– details of file formats, OCR options– describes popular myths on costs

hosting

• text and images• text only• navigation• search• web 2.0• funding models• give it away!?

http://www.parliament.uk/publications/archives.cfm

developing a web interface

drivers• keep costs down• work closely with users • meaningful search across a large amount of data

solution• experimental approach• open source

methodology and progress

• small team of developers from Parliamentary ICT working closely with users (inside and outside Parliament)

• uses “micro formats” approach • XML is parsed into HTML before loading into the

database• JPEGs not currently being used• half of the data has been loaded (mainly 20th

century)• public discussion group and issues log

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com

faceted classification

• faceted approach to browsing and searching • assignment of multiple classifications to an object• classifications can be to be ordered in a variety of ways• facets include

– date– volume number– monarch– chamber– content type (debates or questions)– constituencies – Members of Parliament – offices held.

other features

• references using the standard format can be located using the search box HC Deb Vol 385 13 May 2002 c498

• predictable URLs

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1941/may/07/war-situation

• pages created for:– individual Members of Parliament – constituencies – acts– bills– divisions

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com