Digital Research – why we are here, what we have, what we can do for you
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This document discusses digital research projects at the British Library. It provides examples of past projects that analyzed large datasets using computational tools to gain new insights. These include analyzing misinformation spread on Twitter during a crisis and quantifying patterns of use in medieval manuscripts. The document emphasizes the potential for interdisciplinary, collaborative projects and notes the convergence of technology and culture in the emerging digital humanities field. Examples of current and potential future projects are also mentioned.
Digital Research – why we are here, what we have, what we can do for you
- 1. Digital Research at the British Library Why we are here, what we have, what we can do for you Dr James Baker Curator, Digital Research @j_w_baker
- 2. www.bl.uk 2
- 3. www.bl.uk 3 “Literary scholars and historians have in the past been limited in their analyses of print culture by the constraints of physical archives and human capacity. A lone scholar cannot read, much less make sense of, millions of newspaper pages. With the aid of computational linguistics tools and digitized corpora, however, we are working toward a large-scale, systemic understanding of how texts were valued and transmitted during this period” David A. Smith, Ryan Cordell, and Elizabeth Maddock Dillon, ‘Infectious Texts: Modeling Text Reuse in Nineteenth-Century Newspapers’ (2013) http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/dasmith/infect-bighum-2013.pdf
- 4. www.bl.uk 4 Reading the Riots (LSE, Guardian) – How misinformation spread on Twitter during a time of crisis – 2.6 million tweets analysed – Volunteers used to help categorise data – Images compared – Sentiment analysis deployed Interdisciplinary, collaborative effort – Proctor (Warwick), Vis (Sheffield), Voss (St Andrews). – Reading the riots on Twitter : methodological innovation for the analysis of big data (2013) © Guardian
- 5. www.bl.uk 5 discipline camp and camps sentence Ngram Viewer © Google
- 6. www.bl.uk 6 ‘Early users of medieval books of hours and prayer books left signs of their reading in the form of fingerprints in the margins. The darkness of their fingerprints correlates to the intensity of their use and handling. A densitometer -- a machine that measures the darkness of a reflecting surface -- can reveal which texts a reader favored.’ Kathryn M. Rudy, ‘Dirty Books: Quantifying Patterns of Use in Medieval Manuscripts Using a Densitometer’, Journal of Historians of Nederlandish Art (2010)
- 7. www.bl.uk 7 © Michael Takeo Magruder
- 8. www.bl.uk 8 © Kari Kraus Kari Kraus (Maryland), Signal & Noise: ENF as part of the sound archivist's toolkit, Digital Humanities 2014
- 9. www.bl.uk 9
- 10. www.bl.uk 10 Virtual St Paul’s Cross Project Notes from talk at Institute of Historical Research, 18 February 2014.
- 11. www.bl.uk 11
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- 13. www.bl.uk 13 “The emergence of the new digital humanities isn’t an isolated academic phenomenon. The institutional and disciplinary changes are part of a larger cultural shift, inside and outside the academy, a rapid cycle of emergence and convergence in technology and culture” Steven E Jones, Emergence of the Digital Humanities (2014)
- 14. www.bl.uk 14
- 15. www.bl.uk 15
- 16. www.bl.uk 16
- 18. www.bl.uk 18
- 19. www.bl.uk 19 A Web of Rights, British Library, 19 February 2015 http://bldigicon7.eventbrite.co.uk/
- 20. www.bl.uk 20
- 21. www.bl.uk 21 Thank you! @j_w_baker [email protected] http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digital-scholarship/ Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/drjwbaker/
- 22. www.bl.uk 22 Prototype Digital Research project task – Get into groups • 6 groups arranged by birthday • Jan/Feb = Group 1; Mar/April = Group 2; et cetera. • Find the flip chart that represents your group number – Use the cards to come up with a potential project idea that is: • A combination of tool cards and collection cards (you all have different ones!) • Draws on what has been talked about this morning • Uses the best of the skills and backgrounds your group can offer • Thinks big rather – Feedback after lunch • No more than 2 minutes – including challenges you may face • I will be timing!