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The British Library: More than just booksExploring new ideas and methods to better understand the cultural and historic heritage held by the Library.
MSc CGE: Games Industry Seminar Series 2013-14Computing, Room NAB 314, New Academic Building,29 St James Street, Goldsmiths University of London
Tuesday 4th of February 2014, 1400 - 1415
Mahendra MaheyManager of British Library Labs
http://labs.bl.uk 2#bl_labs [email protected]
Overview
• The British Library– More than just books
– Digital Content
• Researchers wanting to use digital content– How can the British Library support these users
– The British Library Labs project
• Interns working with the Labs project
• Research methods, ideas and projects using digital content
http://labs.bl.uk 3#bl_labs [email protected]
St Pancras, London
Boston SpaSpace for 1200 readers. Around 400,000 visitors per year 625 km of shelves,
and grows by 12 km every year
http://labs.bl.uk 4#bl_labs [email protected]
The British Library
• The largest library in the world!
• Receives a copy of every book published in the UK or Ireland (legal deposit applies now to non-print items)
• 150 million items, nearly all known languages
• 3 million items added per year
Storage at Boston Spa, low oxygen and robots
http://labs.bl.uk 5#bl_labs [email protected]
The British Library: The Books
• 14 million books, including the earliest dated printed book, the Diamond Sutra
http://labs.bl.uk 6#bl_labs [email protected]
The British Library: More than just books
• Over 8 million stamps
• Over 3 million sound recordings (dating back to the 19th Century), Cylinders, Tapes, CDs, DVDs, MDs
• Over 4 million maps
• Over 1.6 million musical scores
• Over 350,000 manuscripts
• 60 million patents
http://labs.bl.uk 7#bl_labs [email protected]
The British Library: Digital Collections
• Nearly 700 digital collections
• Terrabytes and terrabytes of content…
• Stored on various media e.g. CDs, DVDs, hard drives, including the Digital Library System which is replicated in four locations (London, National Library of Wales, Scotland and Boston Spa)
• Transforming access for researchers through digitisation
http://labs.bl.uk 13#bl_labs [email protected]
British National BibliographyUK Web Archive DataDigitised Books
Environmental SoundsElectronic journals
Book ordering and anonymised reader
data
Resonance FM10 year CommunityArts Radio Show
Other Digitised Collections…
http://labs.bl.uk 14#bl_labs [email protected]
Access to Digital Collections
Available only in
Reading Rooms due
to ©
Available on site
only due to ©
Digital but not online – various storage devices
Digital and
online
British Library
http://labs.bl.uk 15#bl_labs [email protected]
The problem space
• More and more content is being made available as digital
• How can the British Library support researchers who want to use this for their research?
• Moving beyond access and discovery
http://labs.bl.uk 16#bl_labs [email protected]
http://labs.bl.uk 17#bl_labs [email protected]
What is British Library Labs?• Encourage scholars to do research and development with and
across British Library existing digital collections and data
• ‘Data driven’ approach through competitions, events
• Creating a ‘Lab’ for scholars where they can work intensively with British Library digital collections / data.
• Library will learn how better to support digital scholars and build on existing or create new processes, tools (e.g. APIs etc.) and services.
• Case studies for other research libraries around the world wanting to build Labs for their digital content.
http://labs.bl.uk 18#bl_labs [email protected]
How Labs works in pictures…
BL Labs
Software
Publications
Tools & services to
support Digital
Scholarship
Other outputs…
ResearchersDevelopers
?
AudienceResearch
question / idea
idea
idea
idea
Competition
Contact
Events
Meetings and visits
Engagement with LabsExperimenting with our
digital collections
Outputs from engagementData
Other Digital Collection / Data
BL Digital Collection /
Data
BL Digital Collection /
Data
http://labs.bl.uk 19#bl_labs [email protected]
People involved in Labs
Project Board
Advisory Board
Digital Scholarship
Team
DigitalCurators
Access & Reuse Group
©
200 Curators
Labs
Researchers
Developers
Researchers
Developers
British Library
Universities & widere.g. companies, start-
ups, independent scholars etc
Volunteers
Interns
http://labs.bl.uk 20#bl_labs [email protected]
Labs staff
Mahendra Mahey- Labs Project Manager
Ben O’Steen- Labs Technical Lead
Researchers / Interns / Volunteers / Curators- Can start at any time
Labs
http://labs.bl.uk 21#bl_labs [email protected]
Researchers
• Researchers in UK academia (through interest from around the world)
• Researchers considering or already using digital content and associated research methods (more later from Ben)
Researchers
http://labs.bl.uk 22#bl_labs [email protected]
Engaging with Labs
• Events – Hack/ Data Days and Ideas Labs
• Funded projects
• Competitions
• Volunteers and Interns
Brainstorm ideas & group
Consider and choose
Work into the night and showwhat has been done
1 2
3
Labs Data Cards
http://labs.bl.uk 23#bl_labs [email protected]
Labs working with interns
• Example projects working with digital content
• Possible new ideas
• Discussion
