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
X
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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