Talk for University of Glasgow's Digital Creativity module by Stella Wisdom on 7th October 2019

1. Places of inspiration: playing and
making in the library
Talk for:
Digital Creativity
Glasgow University
7th October 2019
Stella Wisdom, Digital Curator
@miss_wisdom
Blog: http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digital-scholarship/

2. www.bl.uk 2
The British Library is the
national library of the UK
We receive a copy of every
publication produced in the UK and
Ireland
From 6 April 2013, Legal Deposit
covers e-books, e-journals and
other types of electronic
publication
Plus other material that is made
available to the public in the UK on
handheld media such as CD-
ROMs and microfilm, on the web
(including websites) and by
download from a website.
http://www.bl.uk/aboutus/legaldeposit/

3. www.bl.uk 3
Over 150 Million items
are stored in London and in
Yorkshire
If you saw 5 items a day
it would take you 80,000
years to see the whole
collection
Digitisation is crucial for
opening up access to
this content and collections
http://www.bl.uk/aboutus/quickinfo/facts/

4. www.bl.uk 4
The UK Web Archive
http://www.webarchive.org.uk
A collaboration between all of the UK Legal Deposit Libraries:
• Bodleian Libraries, Oxford University
• British Library
• Cambridge University Libraries
• National Library of Scotland
• National Library of Wales
• Trinity College, Dublin
Aims to collect all UK websites at least once per year

5. www.bl.uk 5
The Conservative Party deleted speeches and press releases
published on its website between 2000 and the 2010 general election.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24924185
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/nov/13/conservative-party-archive-speeches-internet

6. www.bl.uk 6
Born-Digital Manuscripts and Personal Digital Archives
The Wendy Cope Archive
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-05/10/british-library-digital-archives

7. www.bl.uk 7
Born-Digital Manuscripts and Personal Digital Archives
Enhanced Curation: Hanif Kureishi's writing study
https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/hanif-kureishis-writing-study
Panoramic view of writer Hanif Kureishi’s study created by taking a series of
photographs of the room and digitally stitching them together to make one image.

8. www.bl.uk
What is Digital Scholarship?
8
"Allows research areas to be
investigated in new ways,
using new tools, leading to
new discoveries and analysis
to generate new
understanding."
Dr Adam Farquhar
Head of Digital Scholarship
British Library
• There’s been a technological and computational
shift in scholarship
• Digital tools have transformed the research
process, specifically two fundamental aspects
of research: search and analysis
• Digital tools help overcome the traditionally
most difficult aspects of being a researcher:
finding information, and interpreting it

9. www.bl.uk 9
• Our digital collections are only going to grow…
• Meanwhile digital scholars are, today, using technology in innovative ways,
expectations have already changed, they’re seeking access at scale to our
collections for computational analysis.
• We’ve much to gain from understanding digital methods and having closer
collaborations with digital scholars—there’s a synergy in solving shared issues
(e.g. correcting OCR, enriched collections metadata, conquering back-
cataloguing).
• Digital scholarship is collaborative, requires input across disciplines and domain
expertise, our curatorial experts have an essential role to play in that.
• The Digital Research Team and BL Labs aim to keep pace of this digital turn,
understand service requirements and support colleagues keen to make the most
of it.
Where does the Library fit in?

10. www.bl.uk 10
The Digital Scholarship Department
Mission
Enable the use of the British Library’s digital
collections for research, inspiration, creativity, and
enjoyment.
Goal
Ensure the Library is able to meet the emerging
needs of everyone who wants to deeply
integrate digital content, data, and methods into
their work.
www.bl.uk/digital

11. www.bl.uk 11
Meet the Digital Research Team
The Digital Research Team is a
cross-disciplinary mix of curators,
researchers, librarians and
programmers supporting the
creation and innovative use of
British Library's digital collections.
Neil Fitzgerald
Head of Digital
Research
Stella Wisdom
Contemporary
British
Nora McGregor
Europe &
Americas
Dr Mia Ridge
Western
Heritage
Dr Adi Keinan-
Schoonbaert
Asia & Africa
Dr Rossitza
Atanassova
Digitisation
Tom Derrick
2 Centuries of
Indian Print

12. www.bl.uk 12
The Digital Scholarship Department
Support Digital
Scholars
Connect & Share
Expertise
Invest in our Staff
Agents for Change
Innovate &
Collaborate
Training Programme & Hack & Yack
Reading Group/21st Century Talks
Arabic OCR Competition
Libcrowds Playbills Crowdsourcing
LIBER Digital Humanities Working Group
Data.bl.uk
Digital Reading Room Pilot
BL Labs Competition & Awards
Collaborative PhDs & PhD Placements

14. • Making
– Off the Map Competition
– MissionMaker
– Litcraft
– Rob Sherman’s Residency
– Interactive Fiction Summer School
– Artistic Use of the British Library’s Mechanical Curator images on Flickr
– Read Watch Play Online Jams
• Odyssey Jam 2017
• Gothic Novel Jam 2018
• Events
– International Games Week in Libraries
• WordPlay
• AdventureX
– London Games Festival
• Off the Page
• Collecting and preserving
– Flashback
– Emerging Formats
• Ambient Literature
• New Media Writing Prize
• Interactive Fiction in the UK Web Archive
What we’ll talk about today:

15. www.bl.uk 15

16. www.bl.uk 16

17. www.bl.uk 17
https://www.thenvm.org/

18. www.bl.uk 18

19. www.bl.uk 19

20. www.bl.uk 20

21. www.bl.uk 21
Digital Rosslyn Chapel
De Montfort University student project created
http://rosslynchapeldmu.blogspot.co.uk/
https://youtu.be/wdUxeeVKm9g

22. www.bl.uk 22
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

23. www.bl.uk 23
C.J. Visscher, London , 1616 (detail) Maps C.5.a.6

24. www.bl.uk 24
John Leake, An exact surveigh of the streets lanes and churches contained within the
ruines of the City of London, 1667. Maps Crace port 2.58

25. www.bl.uk 25
2013 winning team:
Pudding Lane Productions from De Montfort University, Leicester
Created an interpretation of 17th Century London
http://youtu.be/SPY-hr-8-M0 (Flythrough starts at 0:50)

26. Gothic theme, a tie-in with the Library's exhibition
Terror and Wonder: The Gothic Imagination
3 October 2014 - 20 January 2015
• Fonthill Abbey
Home of William Beckford, author of Vathek
• Edgar Allan Poe’s
Masque of the Red Death
• Whitby and its association
with Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula
Off the Map 2014

27. Image from Delineations of Fonthill and its Abbey, John Rutter, 1823

28. Image from Delineations of
Fonthill and its Abbey,
John Rutter, 1823

29. https://soundcloud.com/the-british-library/sets/off-the-map-gothic

30. 2014 winning team: Gothulus Rift, University of South Wales
Created a Fonthill Abbey inspired game called Nix using Oculus Rift
http://nixgamedevblog.blogspot.co.uk/
YouTube flythrough: http://youtu.be/8ESieZO4VHw

32. Fonthill Abbey model in Terror and Wonder exhibtion at the British Library c Tony Antoniou

33. The original handwritten manuscript of the
story, ‘Alice’s Adventures Under Ground’,
which was first told to Alice Liddell by Lewis
Carroll in 1862.

34. www.bl.uk 34
2015 Winning Game:
“The Wondering Lands of Alice”
Team Off our Rockers, De Montfort University in Leicester
YouTube flythrough: https://youtu.be/7bwx4uUnbV4

35. www.bl.uk 35
#Shakespeare400
2016 commemorations of
400 years since the death
of William Shakespeare

36. www.bl.uk 36

37. www.bl.uk 37
The Tempest
Shakespeare 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

38. www.bl.uk 38
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
From Boydell's Collection of Prints illustrating Shakespeare's works
http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/boydells-collection-of-prints-illustrating-shakespeares-works

39. www.bl.uk 39
Off the Map 2016 1st Place:
“The Tempest” by Team Quattro, De Montfort University, Leicester
YouTube flythrough: https://youtu.be/0lzpEFgpk3Y

40. www.bl.uk 40
Off the Map 2016 2nd Place:
‘Midsummer’ by Tom Battey, London College of Communication
Blog: http://tombattey.com/design/developing-interactive-dialogue-in-
midsummer/
YouTube flythrough: https://youtu.be/sz-IKvp62NI
Download the game:
http://tombattey.com/portfolio-items/midsummer/

41. www.bl.uk 41
Off the Map 2016
3rd Place:
‘This Most Desolate Isle’
by Alan Stewart
Brunel University
Made using Twine

42. www.bl.uk
Playing Beowulf
Project with University College London Institute of Education, funded by the Arts
and Humanities Research Council in the UK. Developed a game-authoring tool
based on the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf, for use by schools, universities,
curators and library visitors.
http://darecollaborative.net/2015/03/11/playing-beowulf-gaming-the-library/

43. www.bl.uk

44. www.bl.uk
Litcraft is a semi-standalone series of
developments aimed at encouraging
elements of literary environmental
criticism for younger audiences.
Primary and secondary English
lessons do not typically focus on the
descriptions of textual setting; one of
our aims is to introduce this, through
designing a series of standalone
gaming-based resources that engage
with landscape and world design.
https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/chronotopi
c-cartographies/litcraft/

45. www.bl.uk 45

46. www.bl.uk 46
Rob Sherman – On My Wife’s Back
Interactive Writer-in-Residence 2014/15

47. www.bl.uk 47
https://www.thebookseller.com/news/prhs-black-crown-project-go-offline
https://www.starburstmagazine.com/features/interview-dan-franklin-a-rob-
sherman-black-crown-project
Rob Sherman - Black Crown Project

48. www.bl.uk 48
Rob Sherman - Black Crown Project
“Black Crown represents Random
House’s ambition to push the
boundaries in online storytelling,
experiment with new business
models and launch a new author
in a groundbreaking way,”
Dan Franklin, Digital Publisher

49. www.bl.uk 49
http://bonfiredog.co.uk/thespareset/
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/08/04/succour-and-shelter-the-spare-set/#more-224825

50. www.bl.uk 50
Lines in the Ice - Seeking the Northwest Passage
British Library Free Exhibition
November 2014 to April 2015

51. www.bl.uk 51
Rob Sherman – On My Wife’s Back
Sir John Franklin Lady Franklin

52. www.bl.uk 52
Rob Sherman – On My Wife’s Back
HMS Terror and HMS Erebus were lost on the ill-fated Franklin expedition in
search of the Northwest Passage in 1845

53. www.bl.uk 53
Rob Sherman – On My Wife’s Back
Isaak Scinbank, the ‘Arctic Angler’ of Milldale
http://onmywifesback.tumblr.com/post/100107314408/scinbank

54. www.bl.uk 54
Rob Sherman – On My Wife’s Back
http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/collectioncare/2014/11/the-salmon-
book-conservation-in-reverse-.html

55. www.bl.uk 55
Rob Sherman – On My Wife’s Back
The Digital Cairn

56. www.bl.uk 56
Rob Sherman – On My Wife’s Back
Events & Music
https://soundcloud.com/the-british-library/sets/songs-from-on-my-wifes-back

57. www.bl.uk 57
http://bonfiredog.co.uk/knole/

58. Mechanical Curator
What can68,000
books tell us?
Image: Artwork by Alicia Martin

59. Many of the creative projects I’m about to discuss use Public
Domain images from the Microsoft Partnership Digitisation Project
2006-8
• 68,000 volumes (47,000+ titles) published in
the 19th century mostly in English
• Excluded authors active 1850-1901 and who
died after 1936
• Output: 25 million pages

60. The illustrations were extracted algorithmically from the
digitised books:
60
<?xml version="1.0"
encoding="UTF-8" ?>
- <mets:mets
xmlns:xsi="http://ww
w.w3.org/2001/XML
Schema-instance"
xmlns:mets="http://w
ww.loc.gov/METS/"
xsi:schemaLocation=
"http://www.loc.gov/
METS/
http://www.loc.gov/
standards/mets/ver
sion18/mets.xsd
info:lc/xmlns/premi
s-v2
Image snipped out
Algorithmically
From ALTO XML
Image taken from page 207 of 'London and its Environs. A
picturesque survey of the metropolis and the suburbs ...
Translated by Henry Frith. With ... illustrations'
ALTO XML

61. http://mechanicalcurator.tumblr.com/ https://twitter.com/MechCuratorBot

62. The illustrations were uploaded to Flickr and albums were
created through crowd-sourced tagging

63. David Normal
http://www.davidnormal.com/

66. David Normal created light boxes around the
Burning man, using the British Library’s Flickr Images
The Crossroads of Curiosity Installation
at Burning Man Festival

67. The Crossroads of Curiosity Installation at the British Library
June to November 2015
The installation featured an “augmented reality” self-guided tour enabling viewers to
explore the meaning and origins of the painting’s symbols using Blippar.
www.crossroadsofcuriosity.com
http://www.bl.uk/events/the-crossroads-of-curiosity-installation

68. Hey There, Young Sailor
written and directed by Ling Low with visual art by Lyn Ong.
Inspired by the works of early cinema pioneer Georges Méliès, the video draws on 19th century
images from the British Library's Flickr collection.
The video was commissioned by Malaysian indie folk band The Impatient Sisters
https://youtu.be/bcOP1E5bRE0

69. Fashion Utopia, by Kris Hofmann and Claudia Rosa Lukas
An 80 second animation and five vines which accompanied the Austrian contribution to
the International Fashion Showcase London, organised by the British Council and the
British Fashion Council.
http://blogs.bl.uk/digital-scholarship/2016/09/fashion-utopias-and-the-british-librarys-flickr-
collection.html
More than 500 images were used from the British
Library Flickr Commons collection to create a
moving collage that was, juxtaposed with stop-
frame animated items of fashion and accessories.
http://www.krishofmann.co.uk/work/#/ifs-2016-
somerset-house/
https://vimeo.com/174946933

70. www.bl.uk 70
Sarah Cole, Poetic Places
Creative-Entrepreneur-In-Residence
http://www.poeticplaces.uk/

71. www.bl.uk 71
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.

74. https://www.badgicalkingdom.co.uk/

75. Odyssey Jam 2017
https://itch.io/jam/odysseyjam
Writing challenge tied in with Read Watch Play, a partnership of libraries
worldwide encouraging themed discussions of books, films, music and games,
each month they have a theme and for March 2017 it was #waterread.

76. Odyssey Jam 2017 entries
https://itch.io/jam/odysseyjam/entries
We encouraged entrants to make use of the digitised images on Flickr that The
British Library had released under a creative commons license.
Some games used these images, e.g. No One and 108 suitors.

77. 200th anniversary of the
publication of Frankenstein. A
perfect opportunity to run a gothic
novel themed challenge.
Gothic Novel Jam with Read Watch
Play; participants to make
something creative inspired by the
gothic novel genre and share it on
the itch.io Gothic Novel Jam site.
Entries invited to include stories,
poetry, art, games, music, films,
pictures, soundscapes, or any
other type of digital media
response.
We wanted participants to use
images from the British Library
Flickr account as inspiration

78. Gothic Novel Jam 2018
We received 46 entries submitted by people from all around the world including UK,
Australia, America and France.
https://itch.io/jam/gothic-novel-jam/entries

79. Gothic Novel Jam 2018, The Tower, by communistsister
https://communistsister.itch.io/the-tower
This game now has a sequel, The House of God, and a finale, The Horizon.
Shown at Wordplay 2018 and Beyond the Console: Gender & Narrative Games.

80. We encouraged entrants to use the digitised images on Flickr that The British Library had
released as Public Domain. As a glow brings out a haze by Eldridge Misnomer
is a lovely example of how these illustrations are used as a key part of the storytelling.

81. The Lady’s Book of Decency by Sean S. LeBlanc for Gothic Novel Jam 2018
https://seansleblanc.itch.io/the-ladys-book-of-decency

82. The Lady’s Book of Decency by Sean S. LeBlanc for Gothic Novel Jam 2018
https://seansleblanc.itch.io/the-ladys-book-of-decency

83. 3rd to 9th November 2019
8th to 14thNovember 2020
http://games.ala.org/international-games-week
http://games.ala.org/gaming-at-the-british-library

84. http://handeyesociety.com/event/wordplay-london-photo-video-recap/
WordPlay 2016 was held on the 19th of
November at the British Library in London as part
of International Games Day @ your Library.

85. For 2018 International Games Week the British Library hosted
The Narrative Games Convention: AdventureX
http://adventurexpo.org/

86. http://games.london/

89. The Infinite Library
InteractiveFictionSummer School
17– 21July2017
www.bl.uk/courses
http://blogs.bl.uk/english-and-drama/2017/07/first-steps-into-interactive-fiction-.html

90. Infinite Journeys
Interactive Fiction Summer School
23 – 27 July 2018
https://www.bl.uk/events/infinite-journeys-interactive-fiction-summer-school

91. Down the Rabbit Hole, by Sita Brand
https://www.settlestories.org.uk/findalice

92. www.bl.uk 92
Flashback
This project aims to preserve digital content held on thousands of CD-ROMs and
other disk media in the British Library's collections. Access to the content will then
be provided in the Reading Rooms.
https://www.bl.uk/projects/flashback

93. Emerging Formats Project
This project builds our ability to collect publications designed for mobile devices that
respond to reader interaction or are structured as databases.
Focus on three format types: eBook mobile apps, web-based interactive narratives and
structured data.
https://www.bl.uk/projects/emerging-formats

94. www.bl.uk 94

95. www.bl.uk 95
It Must Have Been Dark by Then
by Duncan Speakman
https://ambientlit.com/index.php/it-must-have-been-dark-by-then/

96. www.bl.uk 96
Breathe
by Kate Pullinger
https://ambientlit.com/breathe

97. www.bl.uk 97
The Cartographer’s Confession
by James Attlee
https://ambientlit.com/cartographersconfession

98. www.bl.uk 98
http://newmediawritingprize.co.uk/

99. https://www.bl.uk/events/digital-conversations-celebrating-ten-years-of-the-new-media-writing-prize

100. www.bl.uk 100https://www.bl.uk/case-studies/lynda-clark

101. www.bl.uk 101
E-publishing Trends/Emerging Formats collection
https://webarchive.org.uk/en/ukwa/collection/2431

102. www.bl.uk 102
https://notagoth.itch.io/the-memory-archivist

103. A forum for those who are interested in games, cultural heritage
and GLAMs (galleries, libraries, archives, museums)
https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en-GB#!forum/games-and-glams
https://twitter.com/games_glams

104. www.bl.uk 104
Web: http://www.bl.uk/subjects/digital-scholarship
Blog:
http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digital-scholarship/
Email: stella.wisdom@bl.uk
Twitter: @miss_wisdom #bldigital