FOLK SONGS
This week I finally had time to annotate the first group of textile folk songs, reflecting on the categories we discussed in the first meeting and creating further ones (my first round of annotation here). Daniel and I agreed on working individually on the two anthology (Llyod for mining songs, and Boardman for textile songs) and share with Jennifer our thoughts and questions in our second meeting. This individual work was very productive, and we ended up with similar reflections which we shared with Jennifer this Monday in our second session (recording here).
We started discussing the need to differentiate persons which are ‘subjects’ (like Johnny) or figures (like devil) from identifiable historical figures (that could be connected to a Wikipedia entry). We then discussed the need to have an industry-specific type of object -such as ‘loom’ or ‘pick’ - and a separate category which can include generic, everyday objects such as ‘bottle’. In the Boardman file, I also created a separate category - ‘textile items’ - to distinguish the products of the industry – such as ‘tablecloths’, ‘hanketchers’, ‘brats’ - from the tools used to produce them, and Jennifer agreed on this choice. We also reflected how this might be an industry-specific need, as ‘product’ is a key element in the textile industry, whereas we might find other (and different) industry-specific categories looking at mining songs. Further reflecting on the Boardman anthology, we also realized that some songs – such as the Wayver of Wellbrook and Hard Times - comprise very specific – sometimes dialectal - terms of machine components which only experienced textile workers would know. When I was annotating, I used some of these terms (such as linderins, pickers, yealdhooks, wellers) as keywords to search in the SMG and the BIM collection and it was extremely difficult to find records. I created this Padlet map to keep track of the terms and start identifying potential museum objects, and talking with Jennifer I realized how fundamental her contribution would be in this process.
We agreed that in addition of her comments on the categories and the meanings of specific words, Jennifer will also add her suggestions on the types of collections that specific words might point to. This made us realize that, alongside the song lyrics, we need to start searching into the different collection data, to understand the types of connections each category might enclose. At the end of our meeting, we discussed the opportunity to create a ‘digital map’ of all the connectable entities enclosed in a song, which might also be a great topic for a blog article as well as for Paul’s film. Jennifer would be extremely keen to work on this and she already suggested a potential location – the Calderdale Industrial Museum in Halifax – which would work very well for the Wayver of Wellbrook . I am keen to discuss this opportunity in the next investigation meeting on 2nd May.
In the meantime, our next steps will be to send to Jennifer our two annotated Word files, so she can add her comments. (In relation to that, Daniel worked with Carol last week to buy a Word subscription for Jennifer, as we realized she doesn’t have access to MS Word. This raised an internal discussion on the inclusivity of annotation tools which we hope to bring in the next Digital Drop in Session).
ORAL HISTORY INVESTIGATION
I discussed with Daniel and Anna Maria the opportunity to organize a Reading Group Session on AI & Ethics to extend the discussion emerged from the investigation to the wider team, and reflect on the potential risks of using Large Language Models in digital humanities projects. In addition to the papers proposed by Stef, Daniel suggested to include the following piece, which provides a comprehensive overview of the areas of risks:
The Reading Group will take place this Thursday (online only): I shared the link both on Basecamp and Notion. Consequently, the investigation meeting with Stef has been postponed to the second week of May, in time to finalize our presentation for the Museum Analytics Conference.
This week I also worked on the agreement with the University of Leicester which was drafted by the legal team, and I had a meeting with Carol to finalize it. Key points of our discussion have been the need to adapt the ‘Data Sharing’ section to cover not only the transfer of data from Leicester to Congruence Engine, but also the opposite: in the case of the Oral History investigation, we need Stef to be able to access and process the Congruence Engine datasets. We also discussed the opportunity to add Nottingham Trent University to the agreement to include the transcriptions of Textile Tales (which are hold by NTU).
OMEKA AND LOST MILLS
I noticed that our Reclaim Hosting service – which hosted our Omeka space - had expired, and asked Jamie and Carol for help. They promptly fixed the issue by renewing our subscription for another year. This is great, as we need to access this space for documentation and demonstrative purposes. I recently discussed with Alex the opportunity to share the interactive timeline on the Ricciardo Sisters with the exhibition team, as an example of how a personal narrative can be displayed in a digital environment, enabling the navigation across different collections. It would be also interesting to draw upon the blog article Jane and I wrote during the pilot study and reflect on the role of Open Source CMS like Omeka in the development of thematic collections and online exhibitions projects. There could also be scope to use this space again: I am currently in discussion with Alex on the opportunity to use Omeka as a platform to collect and stores the images of Lost mills from different contributors. We are discussing various options (including the addition of a Google Sheet) and will have a meeting with Alex next week to decide what could be the best approach.
SOUND IN MUSEUMS WORKSHOP
This week I finalized the arrangements for a ‘Sound Experts Workshop’ which I contributed to organize. The event, promoted by the Institute for Digital Culture at the University of Leicester, will take place on Thursday and Friday this week, bringing together a group of scholars, museum curators, sound artists and designers to reflect on the relationship between sound, museums, humans, and technology. The aim of the workshop is to accelerate the discussion around sound-based experiences in museums, with a view to make the first steps for a collaborative, interdisciplinary research project. I am keen to share our insights on the role of sonic sources in connecting collections (reflections which I will also be sharing during the Calico Chemistry Conference in May). SMG will be represented also by Annie Jamieson from the National Science and Media Museum, who will share her curatorial experience with the collection of Sound Technology.