My week was dedicated to the work on the datasheets which I uploaded on Box (also attached below, if you want to have a look). I started from the ones collected for the Oral History and the Folk Songs investigation, and I also began to update the datasheets for the datasets collected in the Pilot Study:

• Bradford Heritage Recording Unit
• Living Linen
• Piston, Pen and Press
• British Film Institute

The work on the datasheets prompted an interesting retrospective reflection on the data collection so far, as it made me think of the shift in our approach from the pilot to the investigations in the second year. I found the section on the datasets biases extremely stimulating, and rich of potential connections with our decolonisation and race working group. Similarly, it was interesting to reflect on the use of the datasets in other projects and their links with other collections. It would be great to further work on these documents with the data providers, as well as having a dedicated discussion with the CE team, sharing the different reflections from the datasheets. I planned to conclude this work once I am back from leave at the end of June.

I also worked on the presentations for the following events I was invited to participate:

• 8 June: PhD Research Week at the School of Museum Studies (online). In the Career session, I shared my experience of transition between the PhD and Post-Doc
• 12 June (morning): Lecture on Rethinking Museum Narratives at the Summer School, University of Pisa (online)
• 12 June (afternoon): Research Event at the National Trust organized by Nicola Froggatt (in person, UCL) - I will present my Post-Doc experience in Congruence Engine

MEETING WITH DAVID GILBERT

On Friday we had a very inspiring meeting with David Gilbert from the CE Steering Committee. Tim and I met him in London, and Arran, Anna Maria and Daniel joined us online. David was impressed by the shift undertook by the project in the last 6/9 months, and gave us a very positive feedback on the interim report. He encouraged us to highlight more, in future reports, how the project is trying to bridge two key challenges in digital collections: how AI and its evolution can enable new connective opportunities and the vocation towards Diversity, Inclusivity, Multivocality and Decoloniality. We discussed the role of Action Research in enabling this bridge, as well as introducing new challenges especially in our first year. We discussed how the project’s contribution is also challenging how we interpret the concept of ‘National’ in a National Collection, which should be a field rather than a bounded thing.

DIGITAL HUMANITIES CONFERENCE IN GRAZ

I began working at the presentation for the DH Conference in Graz with Arran and Anna Maria. We are drafting a paper that can be a starting point for a future publication. I will focus on the Oral History investigation as an example of how collaboration and interdisciplinarity evolved from the first iteration (the textile pilot study) to the second year of the project, showing different patterns of collaboration and exchange across the technical and humanities expertise. Once I will be back from leave, I will finalize the ppt with Arran will add my reflections on the criticalities section.

The Conference Programme is extremely rich and stimulating, as well as the workshops, and I am looking forward to going to Graz! I booked a place in the AVinDH workshop on 12th July, which will brings together members of the DH community interested in audio, visual, and audio-visual approaches, methods. It will be a very interesting session also in relation to the techniques we are exploring in the sonic investigations.