The Digital Scholar: Experiences from the British Library Labs

Mahendra Mahey

Arts Music Studio, The Open University Walton Hall,

Milton Keynes

Thursday 3rd April, 2014, 1100 – 1200

Manager of British Library Labs

http://labs.bl.uk 2 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

Overview

• Structure of talk

• The British Library and a typical scholar

• The Nature of Digital and the Digital Scholar

• The British Library supporting Digital Scholarship

• Experiences of the Digital Research Team and British

Library Labs project in supporting digital scholarship

• Conclusions and questions

http://labs.bl.uk 3 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

The British Library

St Pancras, London, UK Many books are stored 5 stories below the building

Inside the British Library Space for 1200 readers, around 400,000 visitors per year

Uses low oxygen and robots

Storage at Boston Spa

http://labs.bl.uk 4 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

British Library Collections > 150 million items

> 0.8 m serial titles

> 8 m stamps

> 14 m books

> 3 m sound recordings

> 4 m maps

> 1.6 m musical scores

> 0.3 m manuscripts

> 60 m patents

King’s Library

http://labs.bl.uk 5 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

Our Scholar in Humanities from Oxford…

• Travel routes in the 19th Century

Pieter Francois Post doctoral researcher at University of Oxford

http://labs.bl.uk 6 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

The Nature of Digital

Data broken down

recombined and

duplicated Image: Tower of Babble, Book Sculpture by Brian Dettmer

http://labs.bl.uk 7 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

The Digital Scholar

not necessarily be a recognised academic or someone who posts online,

just a specialist

Digital

Networked Open

From Digital Scholar : How technology is transforming scholarly practice, Martin Weller, Bloomsbury Academic, 2011, page 4

It is someone who employs digital, networked and open

approaches to demonstrate their specialism.

http://labs.bl.uk 8 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

“Reading individual works is as irrelevant as describing the architecture of a building from a single brick, or the layout of a city from a single church.” -Franco Moretti

http://labs.bl.uk 9 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

Example Digital research methods

http://labs.bl.uk/Launch+Event (presentations from researchers using digital research methods)

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 10 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

Digitisation - Transforming access

Spreading the value of collections, content and expertise

Connecting as much as collecting, e.g. social media

Encouraging others to integrate our materials into their

services – and vice versa

http://labs.bl.uk 11 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

only in

Reading

Rooms due

to ©

only on

site due to

©

not

online –

various

storage

devices

online

and open

British Library

online

behind

paywall

Challenges of Digital access

http://labs.bl.uk 12 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

British National

Bibliography

UK Web Archive Data

Text-mining of

electronic journals

Book ordering and

anonymised reader

data

Sample Labs Digital Collections

http://labs.bl.uk/Digital+Collections

• Copyright cleared for research

use

• Curated (Is there someone who

knows the ‘story’ about the

collection?)

• Collection / Item Level

Metadata available? (What state is

and does it need cleaning?)

• Where is it?

http://labs.bl.uk 13 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

Digital Scholarship Department

…become a leading centre of digital scholarship

… internationally recognised for innovation and

collaboration in support of research and

learning…

• The Digital Research Team

– Digital Curators

• Labs

13

http://labs.bl.uk 14 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

What is a Digital Curator?

• Explore how digital technologies are

re/shaping research and how this

informs how the library does its

business.

• Support staff across the library to identify

the opportunities that digital tools and

collections afford in modern scholarship

and to gain the skills to engage confidently

in this area.

• Partner with libraries and institutions to

enable innovation in digital scholarship.

• No specific collection but rather expertise

in digital scholarship, broadly defined. James Baker Nora McGregor

Stella Wisdom Aquiles

Alencar-Brayner

http://labs.bl.uk 15 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

Training Library Staff

• Foundations in working with Digital Objects:

From Images to A/V

• Data Visualisation for Analysis in Scholarly

Research

• Information Integration: Mash-ups, API’s and The

Semantic Web

Digital Scholarship Training Programme

• Behind the Screen: Basics of the Web

• What is Digital Scholarship?

• Digital Collections at British Library

• Digitisation at British Library

• Text Encoding Initiative & Annotation

• Geo-referencing and Digital Mapping

• Crowdsourcing in Libraries, Museums

and Cultural Heritage Institutions

http://labs.bl.uk 16 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

Opening up Digital content

• Picturing Canada: Mapping a Collection:

http://bit.ly/13GhLIe

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:British_Library/Picturing_Canada

http://labs.bl.uk 17 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

Crowdsourcing Digitised Maps

http://www.bl.uk/maps/georeferencingmap.html

http://labs.bl.uk 18 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

Creative with Wildlife Sounds

http://goo.gl/s7siv0

Sound Edit Wildlife Films

Competition 2013 http://vimeo.com/60401313

'Dave's Wild Life' by

Samuel de Ceccatty, won first prize!

http://sounds.bl.uk/Environment

http://labs.bl.uk 19 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

Computer Games

Off the Map Competition 2013

Pudding Lane Productions, 6 second-year students,

De Montfort University, Leicester, won first prize.

Off the Map

Gothic 2014 ! http://goo.gl/gVuVnw

http://youtu.be/SPY-hr-8-M0

http://labs.bl.uk 20 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

Funded by the Andrew Mellon Foundation

http://labs.bl.uk 21 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

Digital

Scholarship

Digital

Research

Access &

Reuse Group

©

Developers/

Technical

Staff

British Library

Universities & wider

e.g. companies, start-ups,

independent scholars etc.

Stakeholders involved in Labs

United Kingdom The World

Researchers

Developers

BL Labs

Curators /

Researchers

Digital

Content

http://labs.bl.uk 22 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

What is Labs…

BL Labs

Open

Software

Publications

Tools &

services to

support Digital

Scholarship

Case

Studies

Audience Research

question / idea

idea

idea

Competition

Contact

Events

Meetings

and visits

Experimenting with our

digital collections

Outputs from

engagement Data

Other Digital

Collection / Data

BL Digital

Collection /

Data

Researchers

Developers

Data Driven

http://labs.bl.uk 23 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

Engaging with Labs

Brainstorm ideas & group

Reflect, consider, and choose

Work late and show what has

been done

1 2 3

Labs Data Cards

Ideas Labs

Hack and Data days

Projects

http://labs.bl.uk 24 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

The winners of the Labs 2013 competition

Pieter Francois (left) and Dan Norton (right)

and each received a cheque for £2000 in November 2013

as winners of the first British Library Lab Competition 2013

Two entries chosen in June 2013

They both worked in residence from July to October 2013

with Labs to complete their projects

http://labs.bl.uk 25 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

Pieter Francois

– made in the British Library

http://youtu.be/xK80Jy0ijkA

http://labs.bl.uk 26 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

Sample Generator: representative samples

• Pieter Francois

• Focus on European travel in the

19th Century

• Uses statistical methods to

support text analysis

• Tool produces representative

samples of texts based on

search criteria

http://goo.gl/YFnZmu

http://labs.bl.uk 27 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

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)

http://212.71.253.54:8000/a

Living Lab: Library of the Future, see: http://alturl.com/284zw

Basic functioning prototype:

http://labs.bl.uk 28 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

Curatorial for Library metadata

Geo location

http://datatales.artefacto.org.uk/

Timeline Slide show

India Office Select materials

http://labs.bl.uk 29 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

Story of one digital collection

What can 68,000 books tell us?

Image: Artwork by Alicia Martin

http://labs.bl.uk 30 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

The Mechanical Curator

http://mechanicalcurator.tumblr.com

• #similar_to_77576796197_published_date

• #similar_to_77576796197_slantyness

• #similar_to_77576796197_bubblyness_x

• #similar_to_77576796197_bubblyness_y

• #new_train_of_thought

Image from ‘A Lost Estate, by Mary E.Mann,Volume: 02,

Page: 91, 1889, London, Bentley & Son

http://labs.bl.uk 31 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

1,020,418 images!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/

Each image has a URL

Some metadata, but you can add tags!

Flickr has an API so researchers and developers can build apps

And query the data

Flickr Commons – 1,020,418 images!

http://labs.bl.uk 32 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

Risks of releasing the images

Funny Books for Boys and Girls. Struwelpeter. Good-for-nothing Boys

and Girls. Troublesome Children. King Nutcracker and Poor Reinhold.

http://labs.bl.uk 33 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

Flickr coverage in the media!

http://labs.bl.uk 34 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

Creative Uses

http://goo.gl/qPPgxX

http://goo.gl/OH6FSn

Jura’s Sound Skateboard

http://labs.bl.uk 35 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

Tagging a million images

- Metadata games and other projects

http://www.metadatagames.org/

Games will probably be developed using Flickr sets

http://goo.gl/j6fxac

Cardiff University’s - Lost Visions Project

http://labs.bl.uk 36 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

Other Labs stories….

• Augmenting news metadata

• Digital Music Lab, analysing music performances

• Opening up over 100,000 Playbills

• 3D printed objects representing statistical data

• data.bl.uk, place for all our open data and digital collections

• Content next to parallel compute power, analysis at scale

• Seeking future funding!!

http://labs.bl.uk 37 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

Competition 2014

• Open!!

• Deadline - 22 April 2014 – tell your friends!

• Residency between late May and end of October 2014

http://labs.bl.uk 38 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

Conclusions

• Huge appetite for openly available digital content

• There needs to be a continuous dynamic interaction with

data and the researchers to formulate and reformulate

research questions

• Working with Digital Scholars creates new opportunities

• Content and service providers, researchers and technical

people need to talk to each other to create the new tools,

services and data needed to facilitate new discoveries

http://labs.bl.uk 39 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

Acknowledgements

Ben O’Steen

- Labs Technical Lead

Digital Curator Team Digital Scholarship Heads

Stella Wisdom

- Digital Curator

Nora McGregor

- Digital Curator

James Baker

- Digital Curator

Adam Farquhar

- Head of Digital Scholarship

(Wrote Labs proposal)

Aly Conteh

- Head of Digital Research and

Curator Team

http://labs.bl.uk 40 #bl_labs labs@bl.uk

Email Labs

• Let us know your ideas for engaging with Labs!

• Questions? After coffee break.

labs@bl.uk