A talk given to the "!CREATE PUBLIC DOMAIN WORKSHOP FOR CREATIVE BUSINESSES" 5th December, 2014 Mechanical curator project, British Library Labs

1. The story behind the “Mechanical
Curator”
Ben O’Steen, British Library Labs
@benosteen ben.osteen@bl.uk

2. 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.

4. 

5. 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/

6. “I am interested
in all the travel
accounts in
Europe during
the 19th
Century”

7. 2013 Competition winners
http://labs.bl.uk/Ideas+for+Labs
Pieter Francois:

8. 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?

10. 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.

11. 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

15. Making Illustrations important
Having a URL for each image is crucial!
Where could we usefully put over a million
images with little descriptive information?

19. 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/ma

23. My contact details for later technical
questions:
ben.osteen@bl.uk
@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

24. 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