Mr. Mahey provides an overview of the British Library Labs project and upcoming competition. The goal of the project is to encourage scholars to conduct research using the Library's digital collections. An initial grant was provided by the Andrew Mellon Foundation. The presentation describes the project team and boards, details of the project and competition, example collections and research methods, and next steps for interested participants. Participants are encouraged to join the mailing list and attend upcoming virtual and in-person events related to the competition.
Plant propagation: Sexual and Asexual propapagation.pptx
British Library Labs Virtual Event - 17 May 2013, 1500GMT
1. British Library Labs
http://labs.bl.uk
British Library Labs and competition information
Friday 17th
May 2013, 15:00 – 15:20
Mr Mahendra Mahey
British Library Labs Project Manager
Scholarship and Collections, Digital Scholarship
2. http://labs.bl.uk 2
Hangout Etiquette
• Mute your microphones during the presentation
• Remember that Hangout is voice activated
– When you speak the camera goes to you!
• I will act as chair and intervene, if it’s getting a bit chaotic
• Be nice!
4. http://labs.bl.uk 4
“Every book tells a story, but
what can 68,000 books tell
you?”
The project in a nutshell…
Encouraging scholars to do research and
development with and across British Library
collections and data (+other)
7. http://labs.bl.uk 7
• Michelle Burton
• Maja Maricevic
• Richard Boulderstone
• Kristian Jensen
• Professor Tim Hitchcock (Digital Humanities)
– University of Hertfordshire
• Professor Andrew Prescott (Digital Humanities)
– King’s College London
• Bill Thompson (Technology writer)
- BBC
• Professor Claire Warwick (Digital Humanities)
- University College London
• David De Roure – Professor of e-research
- Oxford e-research centre
Project Board Advisory Board
People…Boards
8. http://labs.bl.uk 8
• Stella Wisdom
• Nora McGregor
• Aquiles Alencar Brayner
• James Baker
• Rossitza Atanassova
Digital Curators Digital Scholarship
• Aly Conteh
• Adam Farquhar
People…Digital scholarship team
9. http://labs.bl.uk 9
• Meet regularly (monthly) to decide on licensing of content
that has been submitted for consideration
People…Access / Reuse Working Group
10. http://labs.bl.uk 10
People - Library curators
• There are around 200 curators at the Library
• Labs works directly with the curators responsible for it’s
digital collections
• Find the collections and engage with the curators
• Curators sometimes suggest ideas for usage
• Participate in events, meetings etc.
11. http://labs.bl.uk 11
Labs people
• Labs Manager
• Recruiting a Technical Lead (closes 22 May 2013)
• Ioannis Lagamtzis (Work placement Masters student at
University College London)
12. http://labs.bl.uk 12
Details (1)
• No digitisation involved, just digitized and born digital
Library content
• Existing content on line and other content in digital form but
not online yet…e.g. too big, needs work, technical
challenges, license restrictions (e.g. onsite access etc)
• Examine and analyse the content, especially entire
collections (i.e. cross collection research)
• Do research, publish, make things…
• Transforming services and tools for scholars / developers
using Library digital collections
13. http://labs.bl.uk 13
Details (2)
• Competitions, events and various activities
• Creating environment where scholars / developers can
work intensively with Library’s digital collections (winners
will be resident), but not only…
• Encourage research / developers generally with and
across collections (Labs is more than the competition just
speak to us!)
• Ideas can be pursued by talking to Library staff , with
scholars / developers who are interested in conducting
research / making things, e.g. meetings, events etc. even
business opportunities where relevant and appropriate
14. http://labs.bl.uk 14
The plan in time…
• Launch Event – 25th
March 2013 – draft details of competition and feedback
• Competition details launched end of April
• Virtual 17 May and Hack Event 28/29 May London
• Road-show – I can come to you!, more virtual events
• June 26th
deadline
• Winners announced at 6 July 2013, York (Digital Heritage Conference)
• Best two ideas will win a residency and one will be awarded £3000 prize and the other
£1000 prize in November
• Other ideas, look at supporting in other ways e.g. through Labs, other Library
departments, Business opportunities etc
• Case studies produced around Nov/Dec, repeat for 2014
15. http://labs.bl.uk 15
Components to the plan…
• Policy Framework
• Labs Competitions
• Labs Services
• Labs Hackdays
• Disseminating findings
• Content to be used with BL Labs
16. http://labs.bl.uk 16
BL Labs Competition
• At least 2 Competitions
• Review and feedback to examine approach
• Winners will work ‘in residence’ where possible
• Focus particularly on cross collection research, research at
scale but other research and development encouraged too!
• Help develop tools and services to support digital
scholarship
17. http://labs.bl.uk 17
BL Labs Services
• Identify appropriate services to be developed for scholars /
developers wanting to use digital Library collections for
research and development
• Particularly interested in developing Application
Programming Interface (APIs) for data / collections
• Powerful interface for researchers and developers for
conducting innovative and transformative projects
• Lead by Technical lead
18. http://labs.bl.uk 18
Labs Hack Days…
• Bringing researchers, developers, curators and anyone
interested with collections together at events
• Virtual Hacks?
• Brainstorming ideas – ideas lab
• Scoping research, ideas, solving problems and developing
prototypes
• 28/29 May – book!
19. http://labs.bl.uk 19
Case studies…
• Research generated from the competitions and general
activity of Labs
• Inform the Library and other libraries around the world about
the issues, challenges, solutions and benefits generated
when using a Labs approach
20. http://labs.bl.uk 20
Labs Content
• Work with curators to identify those digital collections that
are suitable for Labs
• Focus on those that are copyright cleared at the moment
• Others considered in light of challenges, i.e. in scope for
Labs work
• Engage researchers/developers with these materials
through meetings, road-shows, hack days, promotions
(including competitions and events)
21. http://labs.bl.uk 21
British Library Digital Collections
• Copyright cleared for research
and non-commercial use?
• Curated?
• Collection Level
Metadata available?
Available
only in
Reading
Rooms
Available
on site
Digital but
not online –
various storage
devices
Available only onsite at the moment
Hack Events, In residence
Digital and
online
23. http://labs.bl.uk 23
British National Bibliographic Data
• bnb.data.bl.uk
• 2.6 Million individual records
• Title, Author, Subject, Descriptions and
more of books and journals published or
distributed in the UK and Ireland since
1950.
• Available as Linked Open Data, Basic
RDF/XML and Marc21. An excellent
resource for uncovering publishing trends
across the decades, and augmenting
records!
24. http://labs.bl.uk 24
UK Web Archive Data
• data.webarchive.org.uk/o
pendata
• An example dataset is
the JISC UK Web
Domain Dataset (1996-
2010) which is a 32TB
subset of the Internet
Archive’s web collection
relating to the UK.
25. http://labs.bl.uk 25
19th
Century Digitised Books
• 68,000 digitised volumes and their
accompanying JP2, PDF, metadata
and OCR text files
• Many rare or inaccessible books
published between 1789 and 1914
and covers a wide range of subject
areas including philosophy, history,
poetry and literature.
• Representative materials here:
britishlibrary19c.tumblr.com
25
26. http://labs.bl.uk 26
International Dunhuang Project
• IDP international collaboration
• images of all manuscripts,
paintings, textiles and artefacts
from Dunhuang and
archaeological sites of the Eastern
Silk Road freely available on the
Internet and to encourage their
use through educational and
research programmes
• http://idp.bl.uk/
27. http://labs.bl.uk 27
Environment and Nature Sounds
• thousands of recordings from the Sound Archive's unrivalled
natural sounds collection is available for free download as
MP3’s to staff and students UK higher and further education
institutions
• http://sounds.bl.uk/Environment/
28. http://labs.bl.uk 28
Book ordering data…
• Every day thousands of items are ordered up from the
library stacks and delivered to researchers in our reading
rooms. We can provide daily anonymised reports of these
titles including shelfmark information and reading room
location
Anonymised reader data…
• Anonymised information about our readers
• Big buckets
32. http://labs.bl.uk 32
Competition 2013
• Join our website and mailing list
• Express your interest or tell others
• Virtual event 17 May 2013 (1500 GMT)
• Hack event 28/29 May 2013, London
• Deadline for Submission is 26 June midnight 2013
• Winners announced 6 July 2013
• Working on entry July to November (curatorial and financial support given)
– Ideas need to fit into this time frame!
• Other ideas can be worked on too!
• Showcase in November 2013 and winners get up to £3000!