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The story behind the “Mechanical Curator”
Ben O’Steen, British Library Labs@benosteen [email protected]
Andrew W. Mellon funded project hosted at the British Library (2013-) - http://labs.bl.uk
Aim (paraphrased): Help researchers make better and novel use of the British Library’s digital collections.

David Foster Wallace, on Ambition:
“You know, the whole thing about perfectionism. The perfectionism is very dangerous, because of course if your fidelity to perfectionism is too high, you never do anything.
Because doing anything results in— It’s actually kind of tragic because it means you sacrifice how gorgeous and perfect it is in your head for what it really is.”
- As told to Leonard Lopate on WNYC on March 4, 1996.
(emphasis my own)
http://blankonblank.org/interviews/david-foster-wallace-on-ambition/
“I am interested in all the travel
accounts in Europe during
the 19th Century”
2013 Competition winnershttp://labs.bl.uk/Ideas+for+Labs
Pieter Francois:
How has the depiction of faces changed in books over the 19th Century?
Or, how well does modern photographic face detection routines work on 19th Century
illustrations?
Did it work?
Face detection worked as well as you could expect - poorly!
It was biased towards successfully finding female faces for a variety of reasons.
There was something else though...
People on their way past would occasionally pause and look over my shoulder.
Every day it dug up illustrations that surprised me and the team around me.
So… I wondered if anyone else might be surprised and intrigued by them too?
http://mechanicalcurator.tumblr.com/archive
Making Illustrations important
Having a URL for each image is crucial!
Where could we usefully put over a million images with little descriptive information?
Impact?
Hard to measure:
- 20 million hits on average every month, over 212 million in 11 months.
- Over 150,000 tags added.- Hundreds of contributors.- Iterative crowdsourcing is ongoing.
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:
British_Library/Mechanical_Curator_collection/map_tag_status
My contact details for later technical questions:
@benosteen
Links:
http://labs.bl.uk
http://mechanicalcurator.tumblr.com
https://flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary
https://github.com/bl-labs
http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digital-scholarship/2013/12/a-million-first-steps.html
Image references:Front page: "[An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales ... To which are added, some particulars of New
Zealand; compiled ... from the MSS. of Lieutenant-Governor King ... Illustrated by engravings.]" by COLLINS, David - Judge
Advocate of New South Wales, COLLINS, Maria., 1804 https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/10999615235/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/11209677645 - Foot Bridge, Dartmoor
https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/11208502325 - The Suspension Bridge
https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/11234482436 - Wensleydale & Swaledale
Image taken from page 97 of 'The Mineral Baths of Bath. The Bathes of Bathe's Ayde in the reign of Charles 2nd as illustrated by a drawing of the King's and Queen's Bath, signed 1675. Whereunto is annexed a Visit to Bath in the year 1675 by “A Person of Q" by The British Library (More from this book here: https://www.flickr.com/search/?tags=sysnum000878624)
Image taken from page 467 of '[The History of New South Wales, including Botany Bay, Port Jackson, Pamaratta [sic], Sydney, and all its dependancies ... with the customs and manners of the natives, and an account of the English colony, from its foundation https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/11001417405