24
The story behind the “Mechanical Curator” Ben O’Steen, British Library Labs @benosteen [email protected]

Mechanical Curator (@ CREATE PUBLIC DOMAIN WORKSHOP FOR CREATIVE BUSINESSES)

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

Page 1: Mechanical Curator (@ CREATE PUBLIC DOMAIN WORKSHOP FOR CREATIVE BUSINESSES)

The story behind the “Mechanical Curator”

Ben O’Steen, British Library Labs@benosteen [email protected]

Page 2: Mechanical Curator (@ CREATE PUBLIC DOMAIN WORKSHOP FOR CREATIVE BUSINESSES)

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.

Page 3: Mechanical Curator (@ CREATE PUBLIC DOMAIN WORKSHOP FOR CREATIVE BUSINESSES)
Page 4: Mechanical Curator (@ CREATE PUBLIC DOMAIN WORKSHOP FOR CREATIVE BUSINESSES)

Page 5: Mechanical Curator (@ CREATE PUBLIC DOMAIN WORKSHOP FOR CREATIVE BUSINESSES)

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/

Page 6: Mechanical Curator (@ CREATE PUBLIC DOMAIN WORKSHOP FOR CREATIVE BUSINESSES)

“I am interested in all the travel

accounts in Europe during

the 19th Century”

Page 7: Mechanical Curator (@ CREATE PUBLIC DOMAIN WORKSHOP FOR CREATIVE BUSINESSES)

2013 Competition winnershttp://labs.bl.uk/Ideas+for+Labs

Pieter Francois:

Page 8: Mechanical Curator (@ CREATE PUBLIC DOMAIN WORKSHOP FOR CREATIVE BUSINESSES)

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?

Page 9: Mechanical Curator (@ CREATE PUBLIC DOMAIN WORKSHOP FOR CREATIVE BUSINESSES)
Page 10: Mechanical Curator (@ CREATE PUBLIC DOMAIN WORKSHOP FOR CREATIVE BUSINESSES)

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.

Page 11: Mechanical Curator (@ CREATE PUBLIC DOMAIN WORKSHOP FOR CREATIVE BUSINESSES)

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

Page 13: Mechanical Curator (@ CREATE PUBLIC DOMAIN WORKSHOP FOR CREATIVE BUSINESSES)
Page 14: Mechanical Curator (@ CREATE PUBLIC DOMAIN WORKSHOP FOR CREATIVE BUSINESSES)
Page 15: Mechanical Curator (@ CREATE PUBLIC DOMAIN WORKSHOP FOR CREATIVE BUSINESSES)

Making Illustrations important

Having a URL for each image is crucial!

Where could we usefully put over a million images with little descriptive information?

Page 17: Mechanical Curator (@ CREATE PUBLIC DOMAIN WORKSHOP FOR CREATIVE BUSINESSES)
Page 19: Mechanical Curator (@ CREATE PUBLIC DOMAIN WORKSHOP FOR CREATIVE BUSINESSES)

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

Page 20: Mechanical Curator (@ CREATE PUBLIC DOMAIN WORKSHOP FOR CREATIVE BUSINESSES)
Page 24: Mechanical Curator (@ CREATE PUBLIC DOMAIN WORKSHOP FOR CREATIVE BUSINESSES)

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