Reflections on the second Unlocking our Digital Past workshop, 16 September 2021

The Unlocking our Digital Past project is seeking to understand the implications of using AI on digital archival material from multiple perspectives. We had explored some of the potential uses of artificial intelligence (AI) for digital archives in the first Unlocking our Digital Past workshop on 19 July.  This second workshop aimed to pinpoint some of the technologies that could be used to support specific tasks. The focus of theContinue reading “Reflections on the second Unlocking our Digital Past workshop, 16 September 2021”

Nicki Welch – Towards a future access service for digital records at The National Archives – Unlocking our Digital Past

Nicki Welch (Service Owner – Access to Digital Records at The National Archives) spoke at our second Unlocking our Digital Past workshop on 16 September 2021. Nicki’s talk focused on setting out the vision for a digital access service for the owners of digital records. Nicki’s talk rounded off the workshop with a look toContinue reading “Nicki Welch – Towards a future access service for digital records at The National Archives – Unlocking our Digital Past”

Chris Day – ‘Computing Cholera’: Topic Modelling catalogue entries for the correspondence of the General Board of Health (1848-1871) – Unlocking our Digital Past

Chris Day (Head of Modern Domestic Records at The National Archives) spoke at the second Unlocking our Digital Past project. Chris’ talk focused on the use of cataloguing data to undertake topic modelling using a latent Dirichlet allocation model. Chris’ abstract read as: “The correspondence of the General Board of Health (1848-1871) documents the workContinue reading “Chris Day – ‘Computing Cholera’: Topic Modelling catalogue entries for the correspondence of the General Board of Health (1848-1871) – Unlocking our Digital Past”

John Sheridan – Archives in the midst of an AI revolution – Unlocking our Digital Past

John Sheridan (Digital Director at The National Archives) spoke at the second Unlocking our Digital Past workshop on 16 September 2021. John’s talk focused on three points of interest for archives and AI: i) what kinds of insights can be derived from AI approaches, ii) how should AI be deployed, and iii) how to selectContinue reading “John Sheridan – Archives in the midst of an AI revolution – Unlocking our Digital Past”

Leontien Talboom – Accessing the Intangible – Unlocking our Digital Past

Leontien Talboom (Collaborative Doctoral Student with University College London and The National Archives) spoke at the second Unlocking our Digital Past workshop on 16 September 2021. Leontien’s talk focused on the nature of the digital environment and how that impacts on how people can and expect to access digital archives. Leontien’s abstract read as: “ThisContinue reading “Leontien Talboom – Accessing the Intangible – Unlocking our Digital Past”

Leslie Johnston – Achieving the promise of AI with modest approaches to Machine Learning – Unlocking our Digital Past

Leslie Johnston (Director of Digital Preservation at the US National Archives and Records Administration) spoke at the second Unlocking our Digital Past workshop on 16 September 2021. Leslie’s talk focused on incremental approaches to AI and highlighting the machine learning tools we already use without considering them as ML. The abstract for Leslie’s talk readContinue reading “Leslie Johnston – Achieving the promise of AI with modest approaches to Machine Learning – Unlocking our Digital Past”

Professor Richard Marciano – Automating the review of personally identifiable information (PII) in Japanese-American WWII incarceration camp records – Unlocking our Digital Past workshop

Richard Marciano (Professor at the University of Maryland iSchool) spoke at the second Unlocking our Digital Past workshop on 16 September 2021. Richard’s talk explored the tools available for automating the review of personally identifiable information and wider computational thinking practices. The abstract for Richard’s talk read: “A description of computational treatments of archival collectionsContinue reading “Professor Richard Marciano – Automating the review of personally identifiable information (PII) in Japanese-American WWII incarceration camp records – Unlocking our Digital Past workshop”

Professor Cal Lee – Incorporating Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning into Selection and Appraisal workflows – Unlocking our Digital Past workshop

Cal Lee (Professor at the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) spoke at the second Unlocking our Digital Past workshop on 16 September 2021. Cal’s talk focused on the ways in which Natural Language Processing and other Machine Learning tools can be incorporated into archival appraisal andContinue reading “Professor Cal Lee – Incorporating Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning into Selection and Appraisal workflows – Unlocking our Digital Past workshop”

Reflections on the Unlocking our Digital Past workshop, 19 July 2021.

What are the potential uses of artificial intelligence (AI) in helping to archive our digital past? That was the guiding question to our workshop that took place online on 19 July 2021. The workshop was organised as part of the Unlocking our Digital Past project which is a collaboration between Loughborough University and the CabinetContinue reading “Reflections on the Unlocking our Digital Past workshop, 19 July 2021.”

Dr Annalina Caputo – Access to Digital Archives: A Temporal Perspective of Meaning – Unlocking our Digital Past workshop

Annalina Caputo (Assistant Professor in the School of Computing, Dublin City University) spoke at the first Unlocking our Digital Past workshop. Annalina’s talk explored temporal perspectives on meaning in digital archives through the use of AI technologies. You can view Annalina’s presentation below.