@SimonTanner

Through a glass, darkly –Reflections upon digitisation

Simon Tanner

Department of

Digital Humanities,

King’s College London

Image: cvma.ac.uk

06/02/2015 12:18 ENC Public Talk 19 February 2013 1

Digital Humanities:

the application of digital technology to humanities disciplines

reflection upon the impact of digital media upon humanity

> 50 academics & researchers

~ £2.5 million research income per annum

>5 million digital objects, 130+projects

200+million hits over 5 years: 2009-2013

www.kcl.ac.uk/ddh/

Why not go where they are?

cvma.ac.uk

cvma.ac.uk

Beverley Minster in Yorkshire

cvma.ac.uk

Blisland: Sts Protus and Hyacinth, Cornwall

cvma.ac.uk

Beverley Minster in Yorkshire

The purpose of digitisation:

to educate, enlighten & entertain

Memory organisations are where a

community nourishes its

memory, imagination & creativity.

Where it connects with the past

& invents its future.

Curation Challenges & Unfunded Mandates

Digitisation

Web Archiving

Collection Development

Material heritage

Intellectual

heritage

Digital Preservation

Virtual

heritage

Web 2.0 /

Interactive heritage

Born digital

Preservation

&

Conservation

www.kdcs.kcl.ac.uk/innovation/inspiring.html

“Old Bailey Online reaches out to communities, such as family

historians, who are keen to find a personal history, reflected in a

national story... Digital resources both create a new audience, and

reconfigure our analysis to favour the individual.”

Professor Tim Hitchcock, University of Hertfordshire

“Digitised resources allow me to discover the hidden lives of

disabled people, who have not traditionally left records of their

lives. I have found disability was discussed by many writers in the

Eighteenth Century and that disabled men and women played

an important role in the social life of the time.”

Dr David Turner, Swansea University

www.kdcs.kcl.ac.uk/innovation/inspiring.html

New areas of research enabled

Effective, efficient and world leading

www.kdcs.kcl.ac.uk/innovation/inspiring.html

Bringing

collections out

of the dark

f. 23 detail

Digitising the Dead Sea Scrolls

http://simon-tanner.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/when-crowdsourcing-was-called.html

Telecrofting - a tale of PuffinsShetland Isles Museum and Archives

http://photos.shetland-museum.org.uk/

A Digital Death Spiral?

“digitisation = funding”

“Digital is everything today”

“who knows how much

it’ll cost, but digital’s

bound to be wonderful”

“Planning is so 20th Century, let’s be Agile”

“cos our competition / Google / my mate is doing it”

“cos if we build it, they will come!”

Signs you are in the Digital Death Spiral

@SimonTanner

Through a glass, darkly –Reflections upon digitisation

Simon Tanner

Department of

Digital Humanities,

King’s College London

Image: cvma.ac.uk

06/02/2015 12:18 ENC Public Talk 19 February 2013 25

@SimonTanner@SimonTanner

www.kdcs.kcl.ac.uk/innovation/us-art.html

Charging Models & Rights Strategy for Images in Museums

@SimonTanner@SimonTanner

www.kdcs.kcl.ac.uk/innovation/inspiring.html

Inspiring Research, Inspiring Scholarship

@SimonTanner@SimonTanner

www.kdcs.kcl.ac.uk/innovation/impact.html

The Balanced Value Impact Model