Hidden Collections:From Archive to Asset

Interdisciplinary workshops looking at approaches to stored data, archives and collections combined with live placements to deliver digital public engagement content for cultural organisations.

Today

• Introduction to the Programme

• Interdisciplinarity Workshop

• Workshop Sign-up over lunch

• Project Management for remote projects

• Training needs analysis for your team

Background

• Funded under the AHRC’s Digital Transformations Strand

• Based on previous projects which combined training with ‘live’ projects

• Aims to offer exposure to new disciplines and approaches that might motivate you to consider interdisciplinary work

• Aims to offer the opportunity to develop work-based skills alongside discipline knowledge

• Aims to facilitate new networks between researchers

What will I be doing?

Orientation module (October 2012)

Workshops (minimum 3) (November 2012 to March 2013)

Residential (March 2013)

Public Engagement Placement (March to July 2013)

Why is it going to be good?

Expertise from the Universities of Nottingham, Birmingham & Leicester, De Montfort University, Nottingham Trent University, Birmingham City University, The Shakespeare Institute, Tate, Cambridge University Press, the British Film Institute, New Perspectives Theatre, The British School in Rome, The National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement,

Opportunity to collaborate, share ideas, develop networks, deliver a real project

Orientation module

Why? We have not asked for a prerequisite. Some of you will have worked with archives, datasets, collections before. Others not. This module is a comprehension-type exercise to ensure you have a shared vocabulary/

Written by Alex Southern (Archivist and PhD Student) in partnership with Kathryn Summerwill (Assistant Archivist, IS Research & Learning Resources Division)

Orientation module

The module gives an overview of the terminology, concepts and issues that you will need to be familiar with before beginning the workshops and placements.The information in this section of the website has been broken down into five areas:

What is an Archive? How to Research ArchivesCollectionsSearching for Resources Using Archive Resources

Orientation module

Each of these sections focuses on the skills and information that an educational researcher would need in order to use archival resources and disseminate research effectively, giving you a sound theoretical basis for undertaking archival research.

The terms and concepts exist across all archives, and include examples and links to further information that are relevant to specific types of archive collection, covering the thematic strands of the Hidden Collections programme – corpora, image, object, performance and theatre, film.

Orientation module

You are asked to produce an outline for a piece of research that you could carry out using archive resources in one of the H/C thematic strands, including some discussion of the issues you would need to address in terms of sourcing and accessing appropriate material and disseminating your research.All the information you will need to complete the task is available on the Intro to Archives pages, and through the links provided.Your completed task should be emailed to Alex Southern at ttxas13@nottingham.ac.uk by the deadline of 5pm Monday 29th October 2012.

Object Workshop: When & Who?

Wednesday 14th November

Dr Katharina Lorenz, Associate Professor in Classical Studies (University of Nottingham)Dr. Penelope Allison, Reader in Archaeology and Ancient History (University of Leicester)Mrs. Ann Inscker, Nottingham Castle Museum and Galleries; Prof. Christopher Smith, Director (The British School at Rome).

Object Workshop: What?

• The workshop will help participants to gain a range of practical skills for working with objects in the heritage sector, exploring traditional archiving techniques alongside new ways of handling objects and related information in the digital age (tools to be covered: catalogue texts; drawing; photography; model building; databases; social media; 3D modelling; performance).

• Key questions for the workshop are: How can we document and archive artefacts? How does the archiving of the object compare to that of its original context? What problems arise from the fact that many artefacts are displaced from their original context? How can we present objects to different audiences and make them engage? How do the tools at our disposal work in practice?

Corpora Workshop: When & Who?

Friday 23rd November 2012.

Professor Svenja Adolphs, Professor of English Language and Linguistics (University of Nottingham)Dr Michaela Mahlberg , Associate Professor of English Language and Linguistics (University of Nottingham)

Corpora Workshop: What?

• see examples of the kind of research questions that can be addressed with the help of corpus tools

• get hands-on opportunities to use corpus tools• see examples of corpora

Image Workshop – When & Who?

Friday 30th November

Dr Mark Rawlinson, Senior Lecturer and Head of Department of Art History, University of NottinghamRobert Wenley, Acting Director (and permanent senior curator), The Barber Institute, University of BirminghamDr Jutta Vinzent , Senior Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Art and Visual Culture, University of BirminghamDr Richard Clay, Senior Lecturer in History of Art, University of BirminghamNigel Llewelyn (Director of Research, Tate)

Image Workshop

Dr Mark Rawlinson, Senior Lecturer and Head of Department of Art History, University of NottinghamRobert Wenley, Acting Director (and permanent senior curator), The Barber Institute, University of BirminghamDr Jutta Vinzent , Senior Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Art and Visual Culture, University of BirminghamDr Richard Clay, Senior Lecturer in History of Art, University of BirminghamNigel Llewelyn (Director of Research, Tate)

• The Barber as an example of the history of gallery archives• The practice of researching in archives.• Doing digital public engagement (Tate)

Theatre and Performance Workshop: When & Who?

Friday 8th February

Dr Jo Robinson, Associate Professor in Drama and Performance (University of Nottingham)Professor Julie Sanders, Professor in English Literature and Drama (University of Nottingham)Dr Erin Sullivan, Shakespeare Institute (University of Birmingham)Dr Matt Hawthorn, Senior Lecturer, Visual Arts and Performance (Nottingham Trent University)Peter Kirwan: Peter is Lecturer in Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama in the School of English, University of Nottingham.

Theatre and Performance Workshop: What?

• Introduction to the theory and practice of working with and developing an archive of performance

• The workshop will introduce students to a variety of methodologies and practice around developing digital archives of performance: digitising, curating and exploiting pre-existing archives of performance, using digital media tools to capture and to develop and map narratives of performance, and exploiting digital and social media to crowdsource new archives of performance.

Film Workshop: When & Who?

Wednesday 6th March 2013

Dr Laraine Porter, Senior Lecturer in Film (De Montfort University) Dr Paul Long, Reader in Media and Cultural History (Birmingham City University)Honorary Prof. Richard Paterson (University of Glasgow), Head of Research and Scholarship, The British Film InstituteGemma Starkey, Archive Online Education Developer , The British Film Institute

Film Workshop: What?

• To achieve awareness of how programmes of archive film are curated and delivered in the public domain – in cinemas, BFI Mediatheques and across the web.

• To discover how archive film works across various exhibition platforms and what can be achieved.

Interdisciplinarity

• What is it?• Why bother?• What can you get out of it?• Where might it take you? (academically and professionally)

Interdisciplinarity and multidisciplinarity

interdisciplinary research - bringing methods from one discipline into another (this may involve evolution of the method to make it more appropriate to the new discipline) multidisciplinary research - researchers form separate disciplines working together from their own disciplinary perspective in order to solve a common problem (this is the main type of interdisciplinary working that this hidden collections project will develop I think)

Cross-disciplinarity and transdisciplinarity

cross-disciplinary research - using a method from one discipline in another. A good example here is ethnography which began in anthropology and yet is now widely used across various human and social disciplines. The key difference between cross and interdisciplinary research is that the former does not allow for the modification of the method for the new discipline. transdisciplinary research - research that transcends all traditional disciplinary boundaries. more of a utopian ideal that and established method of working but also an aspiration for the hidden collections programme!

An exhibition on the theme of crime and punishment

• Split up into disciplines• Come up with an idea for an exhibition drawing on key

themes and approaches in your areas• You need to consider:• What images you will include and why• What your public programme will include (you need to

have an event for adults, an event for children, and an event for another audience)

• What the event’s digital presence will comprise (and what will its digital footprint be)

• What an associated academic conference would be and who would keynote

An exhibition on the theme of crime and punishment

• Merge with another group• Share your ideas• Agree a new version of the exhibition that usefully brings

together content inspired by the different disciplines