Dr Dinah Eastop

Searching the Unsearchable

Welcome to ‘Big Idea’ seminar 2

One way to foster new ideas to integrate:• development of resources and services

• widening public access to records

• the preservation of the records

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Big Idea?Thinking differently about ‘the record’Colour as ContentDesign as DataTexture as important as Text

Searching x browsing x exploring OR Design as Data

Board of Trade (BT) Design Register Record combines text, images, artefacts (things)

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Plan

• Introduce BT Design Register • Exercise & Feedback• Update & Opportunities

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Board of Trade Design Register 1839-1991 - copyright over designHuge variety: designs, materials & products

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~ 3 million designs 11,122 orderable units

some weigh more than 25kg

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World-wide

Recent discovery London Grand Central Railway Terminus

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Valued qualities: texture, colour, motifkid leather; multi-coloured print on paper

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Valued qualities: texture, colour, motifplaited straw, blue silk fringe; red print

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Text + non-text content

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Challenge – different sorts of ‘content’

Online searching of text

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Online ‘searching’ of colour, texture, motif

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Complexity of challenge

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Exercise & Feedback

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Consultation with users and potential users

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1842-1883/4 Registers online at design level700,000+ text records of design registrations released 2012

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UPP – text on/alongside designs recordedtranscribed, catalogued and added to online records

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Online access for presentation & preservation Preparation for image capture

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Image capture trialswhat and how?

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Interaction online via PTMhttp://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/blog/author/deastop/great ‘user feedback’ – dwell time av. 4 minutes

Interaction online via PTM – zoom

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Texture through shading - monochrome http://www.digitalepigraphy.org

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Film to evoke hands-on experience Film maker: Anna Brass

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Tagging – to link BTDR with museum collections

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Tagging – linking designs with museum collections http://www.nms.ac.uk/turkey_red/colouring_the_nation.aspx

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User-generated content e.g. http://tagger.thepcf.org.uk/

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Touching online? Haptic technology

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Search by examplehttp://www.tineye.com

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Presenting designs on-line Thumbnails on Discovery? Intuitive Image Browsing?

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Image-rich collections new ways of thinking

• Transcription & cataloguing of text records• Dialogue• Interconnectivity

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AcknowledgementsThe Clothworkers’ FoundationThe Arts and Humanities Research CouncilColleagues at the University of Southampton & Birmingham City University

The archivists, artists, conservators, designers and historians who contributed to consultation events

Volunteers and colleagues at The National Archives

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