Category: museums

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Quoted in Museums Association article on 'Getting to grips with artificial intelligence'

Screenshot from the Museums Association website. Text says: 'AI is set to disrupt all aspects of museum work. But what is it, what does it do and how can we reap the benefits?'

I'm excited to see the Museums Association Museums Journal article on 'Getting to grips with artificial intelligence' by Julie Nightingale go live, as I'm quoted a few times. It feels like months since I talked to the author – a long time in AI, but a relatively short time in digital heritage.

Here's some of what I had to say: 'The British Library’s Ridge suggests people play around with AI to understand what might be coming.

“AI literacy is an important part of good governance,” she says. “People need a solid understanding of where biases are likely to appear, how to review and contest decisions made by algorithms and where sharing data might have privacy or legal implications, so that they can make good decisions about the products they buy or implement. It also helps people plan so that AI tools enhance jobs, rather than attempting to replace them.”'

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'Enriching lives: connecting communities and culture with the help of machines': my EuropeanaTech 2023 keynote

Panorama lit by natural light of a seaside town
The video for my opening keynote on 'Enriching lives: connecting communities and culture with the help of machines' for the EuropeanaTech 2023 conference is now online.

The EuropeanaTech 2023 conference was held in The Hague, the Netherlands and online from 10 – 12 October 2023. My slides are online.

My abstract: I’ll begin with an overview of current developments in AI and machine learning, then present work with crowdsourcing from the Living with Machines project to think about what AI means for online volunteers and communities around digital cultural heritage. I’ll share new thinking on ‘volunteer enrichment’ – participation in crowdsourcing that not only enriches and enhances collections records, but also enriches the lives of volunteers. How can we embed GLAM values when we apply AI and machine learning tools in our work?

In preparing my keynote I revisited my keynote for EuropeanaTech 2011, and reflected on work on crowdsourcing, data science and AI at the British Library, the Collective Wisdom project and Living with Machines since then.

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Crowdsourcing workshop activities: ideation and elaboration

I've been working on structures for online workshops for people working on crowdsourcing and other digital participation projects for museums, libraries and archives for over a decade now, learning from each institution I work with. I thought I'd share one of the slide decks I'm currently using.

The deck is labelled 'Coming up with and developing crowdsourcing ideas'. In a workshop or class on crowdsourcing it usually comes after sessions that explain the whats and whys of crowdsourcing in cultural heritage. It's designed to get people quickly working on practical ideas, anticipating issues and ensuring that their projects will fit into their specific institutional context.

The prompts currently include: What does success look like? Which audiences are interested? Why? What could you learn from trying this? Which collections are involved? Links to mission? Pros? Cons? How could you ensure data quality? Costs  (staff, tech)? Dependencies / assumptions? What problem does it address? Questions, concerns? What volunteer skills, experience needed? What will they learn? What tech, data is needed?

You can develop your own prompts based on the attributes that are important to you. The Collective Wisdom Handbook is a useful guide to figuring out what's important to you, from data quality to integration with existing workflows.

I mostly recently used this for a Europeana-funded workshop for the Estonian War Museum – General Laidoner Museum in March 2022.

The museums have shared some lessons from the workshop in a post for Europeana. Their report 'Estonian museums' experience in the field of crowdsourcing' not only provides some background on volunteering and crowdsourcing in Estonian museums, it also shows how they applied the prompts.

Crowdsourcing-workshop-activities_-ideation-and-elaborationDownload

Crowdsourcing workshop activities: ideation and elaboration by Mia Ridge is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

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2017: an overview

This page is a work in progress…

2017 was an unexpectedly challenging year, as much of it was taken up with treatment for cancer. (I'm fine now).

In February 2017 I did a workshop in Edinburgh for Dr Anouk Lang's Beyond the Black Box: Building Algorithmic and Statistical Literacy through Digital Humanities Tools and Resources and went to Santa Barbara for Always Already Computational: Library Collections as Data.

I keynoted at DIGIKULT 2017 in Sweden in March, 'Wishing Upon a Star: Making Crowdsourcing in Cultural Heritage a Reality' (video link): The success of crowdsourcing projects that have transcribed, categorized, linked and researched millions of cultural heritage and scientific records has inspired others to try it their own organisations. We can look to ‘star’ projects for ideas, but what is it really like to run a crowdsourcing project?

In June I was in Sydney for the Future Library Congress at EduTECH. I was in Taiwan in August and in October I spoke at the German Historical Institute in Washington, DC and gave a keynote on crowdsourcing in Angers, France.

I was interviewed by Thomas Padilla on Engaging Open Cultural Data for the DH+Lib 'data praxis' series.

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Conference presentation: Crowdsourcing in libraries and museums: Challenges, opportunities and digital impacts

I was invited to do a presentation for a conference organised by the Chinese Association of Museums in Taipei, Taiwan. I gave a version of 'Crowdsourcing in libraries and museums: Challenges, opportunities and digital impacts' tailored for their audience.

Abstract:

Crowdsourcing in museums and libraries involves asking the public to help with tasks that contribute to a shared, significant goal or research interest related to cultural heritage collections or knowledge. This talk will introduce some key examples of successful crowdsourcing projects that have transcribed, categorised, linked and researched millions of cultural heritage and scientific records, and discuss some of the reasons for their success. Digital technologies have enabled exciting new forms of public participation in cultural heritage and the sciences, but they can also challenge museums, libraries and archives to manage the changes that these new opportunities bring. Audience expectations have changed as social media and digital technologies have encouraged greater organisational transparency, and more flexible digitisation and information management practices. How can museums and libraries work with the public to make collections more accessible while making room for people to explore and enjoy collections in new ways?