elag2015 ivory tower
TRANSCRIPT
Exploring British Design
From Ivory Tower to People Power 15/04/2023
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Jane Stevenson, JiscPete Johnston, JiscTom Hart, Jisc
Catherine Moriarty, Brighton Design ArchivesAnna Kisby Compton, Brighton Design Archives
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Exploring British Design
»AHRC: “Digital Transformations aims to exploit the potential of digital technologies to transform research in the arts and humanities”
»Archives Hub: aggregator of archive descriptions
»Brighton Design Archives, the University of Brighton
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Project Aims
»Exploring Britain's design history by involving information professionals, historians and researchers
»Moving away from traditional collection-level archival descriptions towards more inter-connectivity
»Enabling researchers to explore and connect people, subjects, and events.
»Using the XML standard, Encoded Archival Context - Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families (EAC-CPF)
»Creating high-quality bespoke name authority records for British designers and making these openly available for further utilisation
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The Ivory Tower
Or “Ignorance is Bliss”
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People Power
Or, “Once you introduce people, things are a lot more complicated”
Flickr: nolnet, https://www.flickr.com/photos/nolnet/5502831713/
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Student workshops
»We asked focus groups of postgraduate students:› How do you research?
»We gave them an event, person or building to think about and asked them to chart their research paths
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Research Paths: results
» Google is the most common starting point
» There is often a strong visual emphasis to research
» It is common to utilise the references listed in Wikipedia
» The library is one part of a diverse landscape; library searches can produce ‘meaningless results’ (too many results; relevance not clear)
» Online research: immediacy but issues of trust, results may not be very specific, obscure sources may be hidden
» Personal habits and past experience play a large part
» Research (i) means to an end (ii) an important (enjoyable!) process
» Serendipity is valued – browsing the library shelves is a good example
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Student workshops
»We asked a group of postgraduate students:› Think about websites and what you like
and dislike about them
»We showed them some sites and discussed them
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http://va.goodformandspectacle.com/
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Student workshops
»Students did not like sites that seemed patronising
»They liked the ‘explore’ features
»They talked about discovery beyond what the site appeared to provide
»They tended to ask about whether they could search for ‘x’ or ‘y’ – something relevant to their own particular research interests, e.g. gender studieshttp://blog.archiveshub.ac.uk/category/exploring-british-design/
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Documenting Archives
»An archive is described through a collection description
»One archive = one document describing the archive
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From search box…
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Collection
Person
Place Organisation
Image
Collection
Person
Place Organisation
Image
Collection
Person
Place Organisation
Image
Search:
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Collection
Collection
Person
Organisation
…to search result
From A to B,From B to C,And then from C you get to D.But this does not enable youTo get to C from A or Q
Collection
Person
Person
A
B
C
Place
Collection
Person
Person
Event
Date
Q
Occupatio
n
?
?
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Person
Collection
Person
Collection
Collection
Person
Place Organisation
Image
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Person
Collection
Collection
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Person
Person
Person
Person
Org
Org
Collection
Collection
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http://socialarchive.iath.virginia.edu/
http://socialarchive.iath.virginia.edu/ark:/99166/w66m35nm
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Exploring British Design
Or, “Beating a Path through the Dense Dark Undergrowth is Hard Work”
Any thing can be a focus for a user/application
»Archival materials
»Persons, organisations
»Places
»Events
»Relations
»Objects
AgentBiography
Event
TimePeriod
Chronology
Place
ThingRelationship
ArchivalResource
“Thing”
Bibliographic
Resource
(Object, Artwork, Design)
AgentRelationship
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Data sources
»Bringing together data from different sources› Archives Hub data› Hand crafted data created for the project
– chronologies – relationships – relationship type
› Hard to create this data any other way › Looked at other sources (Design Museum)
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EAC-CPF
»EAC-CPF – XML format for organisations/persons/families
»Data went beyond what is supported by EAC-CPF› images linked to agents (people) and events› ‘see also’
»Formats can provide rigour but they can constrain
»EAC-CPF essentially for data sharing – provide export
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Tools
»We didn’t find suitable robust tools for data creation
»xEAC – good functionality (VIAF lookup) but glitches› didn’t seem to support whole EAC standard › couldn’t go beyond EAC limitations
»Variations in our data were always likely to challenge available tools
»“tidy datasets are all alike but every messy dataset is messy in its own way"
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Entities and Events
»Go beyond ‘find records to match x query’
»Focus was on person, organisation & events› matches through various criteria
»We do not have standards where events are foregrounded
»EAC-CPF treats events as secondary
Archives
Hub
SNAC
Partial EAC XML
EAC
XML
Search/Get
Create/Edit
CSVGoogleSheets
EACfromHubO.py
Search/Extract
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Observations
» Lack of tools
» Data variations and inconsistencies› Tools are looking for consistency – i.e. is this person the
same as that person, if so I can link them› Hand-crafted means rich data but hard to ensure
consistency› Archives Hub data is full of variations
» Responsive development requires flexibilty and it isn’t easy!
» So many decisions about data structures - what’s in, what’s out
» Not enough resource….
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Observations»Could we have done it differently?
› Maybe a different set of technologies, e.g. take time to learn about elastic search
› Maybe prioritising things differently – easy to say in hindsight
»Too many ideas can be a dangerous thing!
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Expanding Our Focus
»Record = about one person/organisation?
»No! In reality it is about many people, organisations, places and events
»Small scale but multiple connections meant our approach was strained (x80 people = 800 entities)› e.g. If Maxwell Fry went to X art school then we have
information about that art school, even if its just that he attended it (but as it is a focus, we can add more connections)
»A record focus is a narrow focus; it does not bring to the fore all these different entities