This ‘watch party’ event is scheduled for Australasian-friendly time zones, and will provide dedicated time to watch selected recordings from the DPC event, Lowering the Barriers to Computational Access for Digital Archivists : a launch event as well as the opportunity to hear a new case study and ask questions of some of the speakers.
Computational access is a term that is mentioned with increasing frequency by those in the digital preservation community. Many practitioners are aware it might be helpful to them (and their users) but do not have a handle on what exactly it entails, how it is best applied and where to start. It is often linked, however imprecisely, with concepts like text mining, machine learning and artificial intelligence. It also raises professional and ethical concerns pertaining to data protection and sensitivity review. These well-founded but ill-formed concerns, in combination with the relative dearth of experience and know-how means computational access has been relatively slow to develop. And yet, preventing or constraining access seems to put archives and institutions on the wrong side of often-stated ambitions to unlock archives.
To help address this challenge, the DPC have been working with Software Sustainability Institute fellow Leontien Talboom on a getting started guide to computational access for the digital preservation community. Working with experts from across this domain we have been pooling community knowledge, case studies and tips to get started and have brought these together into a guide which intends to lower the barriers to getting started with computational access techniques.
Presentations will include a basic overview of the concepts and terminology, a selection of case studies from those working in this area and opportunity for discussion. Attendees should come away with some ideas for how they might try and employ these techniques going forward.
Programme
16:00 - Welcome
16:10 - An introduction to computational access - Leontien Talboom, University College London (recording with live Q&A)
16:35 - Living archaeologies of online collections - Tim Sherratt, University of Canberra (live)
16:55 - ‘DIY’ Computational Access: the Polytechnic Magazine (1879 to 1960) - Jacob Bickford, The National Archives UK (recording)
17:05 - Collections as data at the National Library of Scotland: access, engagement, outcomes - Sarah Ames, National Library of Scotland (recording)
17:20 - Discussion and Next Steps
17:30 - Close
Recordings
Tim Sherratt, University of Canberra - Living archaeologies of online collections
Leontien Talboom, University College London - An introduction to computational access
Jacob Bickford, The National Archives UK - ‘DIY’ Computational Access: the Polytechnic Magazine (1879 to 1960)
Sarah Ames, National Library of Scotland - Collections as data at the National Library of Scotland: access, engagement, outcomes