We are slightly biased on this one, as we are involved, but – 9 June,
13:30-19:00 Seeing is Believing: New Technologies for Cultural Heritage at University College London looks like an afternoon worth attending.
The organization of, and access to, cultural and humanistic resources presents particular problems because of the diversity of material and the uniqueness of many individual items. Issues of natural language and the semantic complexity of resources add to the mix and provide many challenges for those working in this field.
Despite this, there has been an upsurge in the cultural resources available on the web and many collections of this kind are becoming available. The programme will provide an opportunity to hear about current work with texts, archives, objects and museum collections, from both a theoretical and an implementation standpoint, and to look at a variety of approaches to the material.
There is also a focus on user contribution and the way in which Web 2.0 can offer solutions.
Programme
| 13:30 |
Registration |
| 14:00 |
Welcome from the Chair |
| 14:05 |
David Arnold: Shaping Up: 3D Documentation and Knowledge in Cultural Heritage
This talk will describe current research targeted to make 3D documentation a practical alternative for Cultural Heritage organisations and cover topics such connecting shape to metadata and the need to interpret the semantics of shape. The talk will also describe some of the challenges that the research faces in the quest to empower the mass digitisation and widespread 3D dissemination that the aspiration demands.
David Arnold is Professor of Computing Science at the University of Brighton. He has been chair of programme committees for VAST, for CHIRON (Cultural Heritage Informatics Research Orientated Network), and coordinator of the EPOCH Network (Excellence in Processing Open Cultural Heritage).
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| 14:45 |
Andy Hudson-Smith: Tales of Things: Archiving and Viewing the Cultural Heritage of Everything Tales of Things is part of a research project called TOTeM that will explore social memory in the emerging culture of the Internet of Things. Researchers from across the UK have provided this site as a platform for users to add stories to their own treasured objects and to connect to other people who share similar experiences. The system allows any object to be tagged via qrcodes and rfid labels, making it suitable for use by museums, exhibitions, artists and the public at large. The talk explores the project to date and discusses the implications of being able to archive and write memories to everything.
Dr Andrew Hudson-Smith is a Senior Research Fellow and Research Manager at CASA , he is Editor-in-Chief of Future Internet Journal, an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and Course Founder and Director of the MRes in Advanced Spatial Analysis and Visualization at University College London. He also runs the digitalurban blog. |
| 15:30 |
Tea/coffee break |
| 14:45 |
Melissa Terras: Crowdsourcing Cultural Heritage: UCL’s Transcribe Bentham Project Crowdsourcing – the harnessing of online activity to aid in large scale projects that require human cognition – is becoming of interest to those in the library, museum and cultural heritage industry, as institutions seek ways to publicly engage their online communities, as well as aid in creating useful and usable digital resources. UCL’s Bentham Project has recently set up the “Transcribe Bentham” initiative; an ambitious, open source, participatory online environment to aid in transcribing the 10,000 folios of handwritten documents by the philospher and legal reformer Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) that are currently in UCL special collections. This paper will explore how crowdsourcing can be used, the myths and pitfalls in using crowdsourced effort, and the features that computer applications need to provide, in the context of the development of the Transcribe Bentham project.
Dr Melissa Terras is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Information Studies at UCL, working in the area of humanities computing. She is also deputy director of the newly formed Centre for Digital Humanities. Her doctoral work on the machine analysis of the Vindolanda tablets was ground-breaking in its field, and image interpretation continues to be one of her research specialties. |
| 16:45 |
Fiona Romeo: [Title to be confirmed] Fiona Romeo is Head of Digital Media at the National Maritime Museum and Royal Observatory, Greenwich. Her department is responsible for the museum’s website and digital marketing, mobile learning, interactive exhibits, and collections digitisation. Fiona is also chair of the Citizen Science Alliance, a collaboration of scientists, software developers and educators who collectively develop projects that further scientific research and the public understanding of science. |
| 17:30 |
Sascha Curzon: eMuseum Network – a path to Linked Data eMuseum Network is a search and collaboration platform designed and hosted by Gallery Systems. The project enables member museums to share their collections catalogues and to search and export data across all participating collections from a single access point, in a share-and-share-alike fashion. This presentation will give an overview of the project and how Gallery Systems plans to provide to
provide a path for museum to participate in the Linked Data Initiative.
Sascha Curzon is European Technical Manager at Gallery Systems; he has an in-depth knowledge across a broad range of domains including databases, programming, project management and client services. He has been technical lead on numerous system implementations at museums all over the UK and Europe. |
| 18:00 |
Wine, nibbles and networking (served at UCL cloister) |
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VENUE: University College London
Christopher Ingold Chemistry Lecture Theatre [to be confirmed]Christopher Ingold Building, Ground Floor
20 Gordon St, London, WC1H 0AJ [directions] [UCL street map]
FEE: £ 20 (ISKO members and students FREE)
BOOKING: www.iskouk.org/cultural_heritage_jun2010.htm
