Talk to UCL Arts and Sciences (BASc) students on 27th February 2017

1. Digital Scholarship at the British Library:
Digitised & Born Digital Collections;
Opportunities for Collaboration and
Research’
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

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
• Three collections:
– Open Archive (since 2004)
– Legal Deposit Archive (since 2013)
– JISC Historical Archive (1996-2013)
• Statistics:
– Over eight billion resources
– Over 160TB compressed data
• Goals:
– Preserve UK web history
– Support access
– Enable research

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

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Big UK Domain Data for the Arts and Humanities: working with the
archive of UK web space, 1996–2013
Case studies available:
http://buddah.projects.history.ac.uk/

7. www.bl.uk 7
Born-Digital Manuscripts
Personal Digital Archives

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The Wendy Cope Archive
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-05/10/british-library-digital-archives

9. www.bl.uk 9
Digital Scholarship is using
computational methods either
to answer existing research
questions or to challenge existing
theoretical paradigms…. Geotagging
Data Visualisation
Data Mining
Georeferencing
Digital Mapping
Crowdsourcing
Text mining
Collaboration

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Meet the Digital Research Team
We support researchers in the innovative
use of British Library's digital collections and
data through:
• Working behind the scenes to get content
in digital form and online
• Offering digital research support and
guidance
• Supporting collaborative projects
• Running events, competitions, and awards

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12. Poetic Places poeticplaces.co.uk
@poetic_places

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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
archive collections.
• Brings literature and heritage into everyday life in
unexpected moments. Serendipitous discovery; not tours.
• Browse the poems and places without being in situ.
• A low-cost, low-complexity project to inspire.

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Content & Curation
Text (poems & prose)
– Drew from existing anthologies and resources (i.e. Poetry Atlas).
– ~30 entries; 5 licensed.
Images
– An opportunity to highlight open collections and out-of-copyright works.
– Contemporary works: old images for old poems; Flickr.
– 1–5 images per entry; 5 licensed.
Context
– Researched poem, poet, place to find meaningful/unusual/evocative
narratives.
– Contextualising, marrying text and images.
– History lessons.

18. https://youtu.be/5cOvsEokRwQ

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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

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C.J. Visscher, London , 1616 (detail) Maps C.5.a.6

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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

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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)

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

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

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

30. www.bl.uk 30
The original handwritten manuscript of the
story, ‘Alice’s Adventures Under Ground’,
which was first told to Alice Liddell by Lewis
Carroll in 1862.

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

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#Shakespeare400
2016 commemorations of
400 years since the death
of William Shakespeare

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The 2016 Off the Map competition
Three sub-themes:
Castles: Scene of Ghosts and
Murder
The Tempest
Forests, Woodlands and
A Midsummer Night’s Dream

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Off the Map 2016 1st Place:
“The Tempest” by Team Quattro, De Montfort University, Leicester
Team Members:
Tara Naz, Jasdev Singh, Jade Silver, Christopher Anka, Perrie Green, Joel Wilkins

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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

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

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

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Off the Map 2016 2nd Place:
‘Midsummer’ by Tom Battey, London College of Communication
http://tombattey.com/portfolio-items/midsummer/
https://tombattey.itch.io/midsummer

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Off the Map 2016 2nd Place:
‘Midsummer’ by Tom Battey, London College of Communication
YouTube flythrough: https://youtu.be/sz-IKvp62NI

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For 2017: There Will Be Fun Off The Map

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Three themes:
1. Illusions, magic and
impersonators
2. Outdoor places of entertainment –
Fairground, travelling shows
3. Indoor places of entertainment –
Music Hall and Pantomime

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Maskelyne & Cooke's entertainment at
the Egyptian Hall, 1873
http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/evanion/Recor
d.aspx?EvanID=024-000004866
'Will, the Witch, and the Watch'
or 'The Mystic Freaks of
Gyges', was written in 1872
and performed at the Egyptian
Hall in 1873.
Set in 1799 around an English
village jail, the play featured
Maskelyne's box escape trick.

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Web: http://www.bl.uk/subjects/digital-scholarship
Blog:
http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digital-scholarship/
Email: digitalresearch@bl.uk
Twitter: : @BL_DigiSchol #bldigital