PowerPoint Presentation
Digital Scholarship@ British LibraryStella Wisdom, Digital
CuratorResearching born-digital archives event16th March 2017
www.bl.uk#Meet the Digital Research TeamWe support researchers
in the innovative use of British Library's digital collections and
data through:
Working behind the scenes to get content in digital form and
onlineOffering digital research support and guidanceSupporting
collaborative projectsRunning events, competitions, and awards
www.bl.uk#Set up in 2010 the team was formed as a way of
dedicating focus on the changing research landscape in the digital
realm. Now embedded in collection areas, and as youll see later,
joining the library explicitly as part of major digitisation
projects.
Main activities:
Getting content in digital form and onlineCollaborations,
Competitions & AwardsDigital research support and guidance
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www.bl.uk#One way is through the British Library Labs project
and the Digital Curator team which make up the Digital Research
Team. The aim of the lab is to encourage scholars to experiment at
scale with our digital collections and data. The team holds
competitions, events, and creates the space in which to engage with
scholars working in this realm. Through the labs were learning how
to better support scholars and build new services. 3
Defining Digital ResearchUsing computational methods either to
answer existing research questions or to challenge existing
theoretical paradigms.GeocodingData VisualisationData
MiningGeoreferencingCrowdsourcingText miningCollaboration
www.bl.uk#Big Data + Old History
https://youtu.be/tp4y-_VoXdA
www.bl.uk#Example: Political Meetings MapperI was able to do in
minutes with a python code what Id spent the last ten years trying
to do by hand! Dr. Katrina Navickas, BL Labs Winner 2015
https://youtu.be/0lx0CL_dsQs
5,519 meetings discovered in 462 towns and villages across the
UK http://politicalmeetingsmapper.co.uk/maps/ ,
https://youtu.be/0lx0CL_dsQs
www.bl.uk#Research Question:
Chartism was the biggest popular movement for democracy in 19th
Century British history. They campaigned for the vote for all men.
The Chartists advertised their meeting in the Northern Star
newspaper from 1838 to 1850.
The question is, how many of the meetings took place and where?
We started with 1841-1845.
Source Collections:
19th Century Digitised Newspapers, specifically Northern Star
newspaperDigitised and Georeferenced Map of Oxford Street
Digital/Computational Techniques:
The images of the relevant pages of the Northern Star were run
through an Optical Character Recognition program (Abbyy Finereader
12) and the resulting text was checked manually.
We developed a set of Python codes to extract and geo-code the
place of meeting, using a gazetteer of places, and parse the date
of the meeting.
Outcome: 5,519 meetings discovered in 462 towns and villages
across the UK! http://politicalmeetingsmapper.co.uk/maps/
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Political Meetings Mapper
Video: https://youtu.be/XabsuyNkD5s
www.bl.uk#The images of the relevant pages of the Northern Star
were run through an Optical Character Recognition program (Abbyy
Finereader 12) and the resulting text was checked manually.
We developed a set of Python codes to extract and geo-code the
place of meeting, using a gazetteer of places, and parse the date
of the meeting.
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Big Data History of MusicHow can vast amounts of bibliographic
data held by research libraries be unlocked for music researchers
to analyse?
Can this data be interrogated in ways that challenge the
traditional narratives of music history?
Analyses and visualisations exposed previously uncharted
patterns in the history of music, for instance the rise and fall of
music printing in 16th- and 17th-century Europe (huge dips in
output in Venice were down to plague and war).
www.bl.uk#Research Question:
Brought together for the first time the world's biggest datasets
about published sheet music, music manuscripts and classical
concerts (in excess of 5 million records) for statistical analysis,
manipulation and visualisation. Aim was to unlock
musical-bibliographical data held by libraries in order to create
new research opportunities. The project cleaned and enhanced
aspects of the British Library catalogues of printed and manuscript
music, which are now available as open data from
www.bl.uk/bibliographic/download.html and piloted big data research
techniques on these and five other datasets.
Source Collections:
Data from seven existing databases and catalogues were used as
the basis of this project: the British Library's catalogues of
printed and manuscript music; the bibliographies created by
Rpertoire International des Sources Musicales (RISM) that list
European music printed 1500-1800 and music manuscripts in European
libraries; and the RISM UK Music Manuscripts Database and the
Concert Programmes Project database.
Digital/Computational Techniques:
Data wrangling using Open Refine and MARCedit. Data
visualisation using: Google Fusion Tables and PalladioProject
slides:
http://www.slideshare.net/historyspot/ihr-big-data-history-of-music-9-june15
Outcome: Analyses and visualisations of these datasets exposed
previously uncharted patterns in the history of music, for instance
involving the rise and fall of music printing in 16th- and
17th-century Europe (huge dips in output in Venice were down to
plague and war!), or the rise of nationalist colourings in music of
the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The detection of these
long-term trends permits new ways of linking music history to wider
histories of culture, economics, society and politics8
Handwritten text recognition
http://transcriptorium.eu/
www.bl.uk#
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Datasetsdata.bl.uk
As part of its work to open its data to wider use, the British
Library is making copies of some of its datasets available for
research and creative purposes.
This site is a 'beta', and is in the early stages of
development. If you have questions or feedback about this site or
our open data work, please [email protected].
We'd also love to hear what you've done or made with the
data.
www.bl.uk#
www.bl.uk#
www.bl.uk#The Off the Map Competition
A new type of collaboration
Explores how British Library digital collections can be used in
creative ways
Engagement with new audiences
Opportunity for students in the UK to showcase their talents to
industry
www.bl.uk#
#Shakespeare400
2016 commemorations of 400 years since the death of William
Shakespeare
www.bl.uk#
www.bl.uk#The TempestShakespeare was inspired to write The
Tempest when he read of the fate of the Sea-Adventure, a ship
taking English colonists to North America which was wrecked off the
coast of Bermuda in 1609. The Bermudas were then the most feared
place on earth for sea travellers, who had heard stories about the
islands being inhabited by devils.
Map of Bermuda as published in Gerhard Mercator and Jodocus
Hondius' world atlas of 1633. Maps K.Top 123
www.bl.uk#Off the Map 2016 1st Place: The Tempest by Team
Quattro, De Montfort University, LeicesterYouTube flythrough:
https://youtu.be/0lzpEFgpk3Y
www.bl.uk#
A Midsummer Nights DreamFrom Boydell's Collection of Prints
illustrating Shakespeare's
workshttp://www.bl.uk/collection-items/boydells-collection-of-prints-illustrating-shakespeares-works
www.bl.uk#Off the Map 2016 2nd Place:Midsummer by Tom Battey,
London College of Communication YouTube flythrough:
https://youtu.be/sz-IKvp62NI
www.bl.uk#
Sarah Cole, Poetic
PlacesCreative-Entrepreneur-In-Residencehttp://www.poeticplaces.uk/
www.bl.uk#
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What is Poetic Places?A free, native app for Android and iOS
devices.Bring poetic depictions of places into the physical world,
helping people to encounter literature and heritage in relevant
locations, accompanied by materials drawn from cultural heritage
collections.Brings literature and heritage into everyday life in
unexpected moments. Serendipitous discovery; not tours.Browse the
poems and places without being in situ.
www.bl.uk#
Aims developed quickly at project startRefined over project,
flexible mindsetLast point: to achieve this chose (needed) to use
DIY app platform
www.bl.uk#
www.bl.uk#Get in touch!
Web: http://www.bl.uk/subjects/digital-scholarship
Blog:
http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digital-scholarship/
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: : @BL_DigiSchol #bldigital
www.bl.uk#
