ONTOLOGIES WORKSHOP 1st AUGUST

I organized and facilitated the first ontology workshop which took place at the Science Museum this Tuesday. With Alex, we reflected on our objectives for the day: from one side, help us to start familiarizing with the ontology work, exploring the conceptual and practical side of it; on the other, to identify key challenges working with the data sources and find common methods to work drawing upon the investigations.

We divided the workshop in two main sessions: in the morning, Sarah Middle gave a very interesting presentation on the ontology work of Tools of Knowledge, describing the event-based approach aimed to remodel the SIMON dataset and the development of another bottom-up ontology, the Scientific Apparatus Types ontology. We then started a discussion sharing our questions and reflections on how we might apply the ontology work in the project. We noticed how the development of ontologies is a very specialist area, and that a core asset to develop in Congruence Engine would be an industrial occupation ontology. Occupations emerged as a key connective tissue for connecting different datasets together, and one investigation in Congruence Engine – led by Alex, Arran and Sarah - is currently developing an ontological expression on occupations. Alex noticed how taxonomies don’t express historical changes and the complexity of the professional identity, and showed a first draft of a potential occupations ontology.

In the afternoon, we reflected on how the different investigations might contribute to enrich, expand a potential Industrial Occupation Ontology, reflecting on the list of terms we are generating and the different methods we are applying.

After the workshop, I had a feedback session with Alex and we agreed that there is potential to continue this discussion through a series of meetings to discuss how the individual investigations can contribute to the central Industrial Occupation Ontology. I will email Arran to align this with the ARPM.

FOLK SONGS INVESTIGATION

We had our fourth online session with Jennifer on 24th July, where we focused on the categories that emerged from our first round of annotations, with the aim to finalize our annotation schema. In the past month, Kunika and Kaspar guided us through the use of Label Studio and we experimented with a Colab version connected with Google Drive, but it is currently under discussion a more stable solution (buying subscription to Label Studio's cloud platform, or hosting the community edition). In preparation for our future work on Label studio, the discussion on the categories has become fundamental and we also had the opportunity to reflect on our schema further in the Ontology Workshop.

We revised all the categories that emerged from the first round of annotation, noticing that some of them (Locations, Venues, Profession, People, Objects) were close to more traditional NER techniques and very easily connectable with words in a museum record’s description field, while others (like ‘Family’, ‘Body’, ‘Sound’, ‘Economy’) were less easily connectable, but would generate interesting lists of words that could enrich our understanding of the life in the mills and social history. We called the first type ‘Enrichment through connection’ and the second ‘Enrichment through interpretation’, and we agreed that it would be important to keep both categories, also considering our concept of the National Collection as a Verb, which also includes addressing gaps in collections. We are keen to discuss this schema in the next investigation meeting, and to reflect on how we might start expanding the datasets in view  of our work in Label Studio.

We also discussed the film project and the opportunity to record Jennifer singing a mining song from Newcastle. We provisionally identified ‘The Row between the Cages’ as a good song for the film, and Jennifer also suggested Ee Aye Aa Cud Hew by Ed Pickford.

ORAL HISTORY INVESTIGATION

Stef presented the visual exploratory tool in the last Whole Team Meeting on 19th July and is now currently on annual leave, but we will reflect on the next steps in the investigation meeting on 7th August. I am particularly keen to discuss the opportunity to organize a workshop in Autumn to share the work we have done so far to the Congruence Engine partners and get their insights on potential applications of the tool we are developing. We think this could be a crucial ‘round off’ moment to conclude the proof of concept and imagine future development.

In the meantime, I will be working with Daniel in collecting visual and audio assets for the film, and I scheduled a session with Colin Hyde on 10 August in Leicester to collect all the extracts from Mines of Memory mentioning cages, to share with Paul. Colin confirmed that there are a couple of people interviewed mentioning cages and it should not be an issue to use the recordings in a public exhibit.

UNLOCKING OUR SOUND HERITAGE WORKSHOP (27/28 JULY) I participated in a two day workshop in Leicester organized by the East Midlands Oral History Archive and the Institute for Digital Culture. The workshop was designed for the Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project partners to reflect on how to consolidate the community but also to generate new research directions for sound archives. In the first day, I presented the Congruence Engine sonic investigations and get very positive feedback from the participants on the visual exploratory tool for Oral History. On the second day, inspired by the design thinking process, we generated potential ideas for future projects around the following key areas: Digital Preservation, Metadata, Access and Collaboration. Inspired by our experience in Congruence Engine, during the workshop I highlighted the importance of working cross-sector, highlighting the importance to have museums and archives working together to develop sound research.