{"id":116,"date":"2016-10-25T11:52:24","date_gmt":"2016-10-25T10:52:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/highly-relevant\/?p=116"},"modified":"2018-09-18T11:28:22","modified_gmt":"2018-09-18T10:28:22","slug":"dcdc16-salford-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/highly-relevant\/2016\/10\/25\/dcdc16-salford-uk\/","title":{"rendered":"DCDC16 Salford, UK"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Salford
Salford Quays (image copyright David Dixon http:\/\/www.geograph.org.uk\/photo\/2685268) CC BY-SA 2.0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It would seem it never rains but it pours with conferences and hot on the heels of iPres 2016 in Bern which I blogged about earlier<\/a> came DCDC16: Discovering Collections: Discovering Communities <\/a>which is organised jointly by the UK National Archives and Research Libraries UK. \u00a0The theme this year was “From potential to impact” and certainly through the conference we heard quite a lot about academic impact especially in the context of the Research Excellence Framework.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

There were four keynotes all of which were excellent and certainly delivered impact. \u00a0All DCDC presentations are made available via their website<\/a>\u00a0where they should soon be available. \u00a0If I were to choose one it would have to be the presentation from\u00a0Phil Lyons and Sarah Coward from the National Holocaust Memorial Centre<\/a> whose powerful\u00a0keynote focussed\u00a0on the importance of preserving memory and testimony. \u00a0Their centre, amongst other things, seeks to keep the myriad testimonies of holocaust survivors alive. \u00a0Visitors to the centre can meet, hear and speak to those who survived the\u00a0holocaust. \u00a0However they are faced with the\u00a0problem that the average age of their witnesses is 87. \u00a0The\u00a0centre is\u00a0well aware that a huge part of the impact the speakers have comes from the interaction and personal engagement so the experience is not a passive one. \u00a0Visitors can question and interact with survivors: this will no longer possible once they have died. \u00a0The NHMC have developed some fantastic software<\/a> which aims to record\u00a0the voice, moving image and memories of the survivors in such a way as they can be captured as life size projected image which can be questioned and will respond. \u00a0This was developed by recording hours of\u00a0footage of survivors responding to hundreds of questions. \u00a0These are then transcribed, indexed and searched to provide a responsive and powerful\u00a0experience.<\/p>\n

The first session I attended was “Progressive Partnerships: creative collaboration between academic and cultural organisations<\/a>” with a varied but engaging panel of Sarah Price from Durham University, Alice Purkiss from the University of Oxford\/National Trust and Sue Gillett from La Trobe University, Australia. \u00a0The collaborations discussed were very different but all were inspirational for using opportunities and expertise from different sources to promote and further engage different audiences. \u00a0Sarah Price’s work at Durham University<\/a> has helped tackle the growing funding gap in local authority cultural offers. \u00a0With the closure of the local Durham Light Infantry Museum in Durham the university offered both space and expertise to help maintain access to these popular collections. \u00a0The university worked very hard to identify stakeholders to plan for the future. \u00a0They worked with users and non-users as well as developing relationships with the local authority. \u00a0The key message was about working with the strong local sense of identity and listening to people about what they wanted.<\/p>\n

\"geograph-1867942-by-raymond-knapman\"
National Trust entrance sign for The Cloud Summit for SJ9063 by Raymond Knapman (Copyright Raymond Knapman and licensed for reuse CC BY-SA 2.0)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Alice Purkiss spoke about a unique collaboration<\/a> between the National Trust and Oxford University funded by Knowledge Transfer Partnerships<\/a>. \u00a0It is very unusual to have these awarded for a “Humanities” subject but the aim here was developing and creating online articles relating to aspects of National Trust properties (historical, architectural etc) using expertise drawn from the academic community at Oxford University. \u00a0It enables the wider dissemination of research benefiting students, visitors and academics (by raising their profile). \u00a0The example she gave was the article about Coade Stone<\/a> which gives a concise and authoritative introduction whilst at the same time encouraging people to visit properties to find out more. \u00a0The model was definitely about encouraging visitors and improving the visitor experience.<\/p>\n

\"507px-ned_kelly_armour_library\"
Ned Kelly’s armour (acknowledgemeent: Chensiyuan CC BY-SA 4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File%3ANed_kelly_armour_library.JPG)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The final session in this panel came from Sue Gillett who talked about developing an educational programme at La Trobe University<\/a>\u00a0in Australia. \u00a0They collaborated with two regional galleries – Bendigo Art Gallery<\/a> and the Modern Art Museum of Albury<\/a> – to create a changing programme of undergraduate study that was interdisciplinary and offered students an opportunity to engage with and respond to collections and exhibitions hosted by the partner organisations. \u00a0Her example was a course based on the exhibition “Imagining Ned<\/a>“, bringing together artefacts and art associated with and inspired by the iconic Australian folk hero Ned Kelly, including Kelly’s original armour and works by Sir Sidney Nolan. \u00a0 It brought up opportunities for public engagement which had not been anticipated. \u00a0I particularly enjoyed seeing the student responses to the art – I wish I could have done a course like this when I was an undergraduate!<\/p>\n

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Sue Gillet talks about the Imagining Ned exhibition<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There was a whole panel session devoted to metadata and after all – what’s not to love about metadata? It’s what\u00a0binds together all our collections in the form of catalogues and descriptions and\u00a0there were some\u00a0excellent presentations looking at ways in which we can use “metadata” (ie catalogues) to work harder for us. \u00a0Neal Grindley from JISC introduced their KnowledgeBase+<\/a>\u00a0project which aims to link libraries to accurate resources with the specific aim of efficient sharing of e-resources. \u00a0The task of gathering and linking catalogue entries to provide a UK-wide resource sounds simple enough but often the data underlying it is not consistent so the task is nowhere near enough as straightforward as it sounds.\u00a0 The provenance of the current cataloguing metadata which is out there in the wild is, we are told, “murky”. \u00a0Neil Grindley described it as the “library shaped black hole in the internet” which gave us all a pause for thought. \u00a0It might be a question of licensing and then sharing, but in a world where (metada)data has significant commercial value, this is not easy. \u00a0Grindley also looked forward to a point where we could use linked open data to connect to archive, museum and other resources.<\/p>\n

\"By
Old School metadata (acknowledgement: Dr. Marcus Gossler – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=483741)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We also heard from Dr Ben Outhwaite who is working on the Cambridge University Cairo Genizah project<\/a>. \u00a0The project is slowly conserving, digitising and cataloguing nearly 200,000 Hebrew manuscript fragments. \u00a0A genizah<\/a> is a sacred store for holy texts which can no longer be used but should be treated with reverence either by burying them storing them. \u00a0Therefore any texts stored in a genizah are likely to be in a fragile or nearly illegible state, fragmentary and hard to interpret. \u00a0The Cairo Genizah, whose fascinating story can be read here<\/a>, also contained many other secular texts including invoices, shopping lists, legal documents etc which shed light on the thousand years of so history of the Jewish community of Fustat.<\/p>\n

\"Deror_avi,
Example of\u00a0a manuscript from a genizah (acknowledgement: Deror_avi https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Genizah_P1100277.JPG), Genizah P1100277,\u00a0CC BY-SA 3.0)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The collection is vast and using traditional methods it will take decades to transcribe and catalogue. \u00a0Outhwaite discussed how the project used text mining techniques to interrogate the pre-existing literature written about\u00a0the collection which allows\u00a0some metadata to be created for the vast collection of fragments. \u00a0Readers are also invited to add comments – a form of crowd sourcing – although Outhwaite admitted the audience for this was small – although quite active! \u00a0Having the documents digitised does allow scholars from across the world to contribute and engage with the project. \u00a0Outhwaite also suggested talking about metadata and text mining is a better way of getting funding than talking about a library cataloguing project…<\/p>\n

The conference was packed full of fascinating presentations and I was only sorry I couldn’t clone myself and go to many more of them. \u00a0By the end of the conference we were all preparing to wind down a bit only to be jolted out of our complacency by a rip-roaring final seminar\u00a0from Ronan Deazley of Queen’s University Belfast, Andrea Wallace of Glasgow University and the National Library of Scotland and Simon Tanner of Kings College London. \u00a0The session presented “Display At Your Own Risk<\/a>” a “research-led exhibition experiment” which looked at the public re-use of digital surrogates.<\/p>\n

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Vermeer’s Woman Reading a Letter – image available for re-use (Rijksmuseum)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The project explored the way in which cultural institutions expose and reproduce their collections leading on to an interesting debate about copyright and how this interplays with reproducing images. \u00a0There was a further discussion exploring the risks\/barriers both perceived and real to institutions using and reusing their collections online.<\/p>\n

The Rijksmuseum<\/a> in Amsterdam allow virtually unlimited re-use of their collections as well as exposing the metadata for creative re-use.<\/p>\n

Rijksmuseum API demo (http:\/\/rijksmuseum.github.io\/demos\/)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We were all impressed by the creative re-use Andrea Wallace had put the metadata to in making her very own metadata skirt:<\/p>\n

\"metadataskirt2\"
Metadata skirt (from the Rijksmuseum’s metadata) made by Andrea Wallace<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There was a general plea for a sharing and documenting of experiences (good and bad) of copying and sharing cultural assets. \u00a0People want “an easy answer” but there is no easy answer and there needs to be a “community of norms of practice” developed. \u00a0There was certainly a lot to think about in this presentation!<\/p>\n

As ever DCDC was a wide ranging and thought provoking conference which gave me lots to take, not least exploring the creative possibilities of metadata!<\/p>\n

Rachel MacGregor<\/p>\n

[all photographs author’s copyright unless otherwise indicated]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It would seem it never rains but it pours with conferences and hot on the heels of iPres 2016 in Bern which I blogged about earlier came DCDC16: Discovering Collections: Discovering Communities which is organised jointly by the UK National Archives and Research Libraries UK. \u00a0The theme this year was “From potential to impact” and … Continue reading DCDC16 Salford, UK<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":521,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[14,13,12,9],"class_list":["post-116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-cataloguing","tag-copyright","tag-digitisation","tag-metadata"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p81NIC-1S","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/highly-relevant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/highly-relevant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/highly-relevant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/highly-relevant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/521"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/highly-relevant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/highly-relevant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":797,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/highly-relevant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions\/797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/highly-relevant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/highly-relevant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/highly-relevant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}