Map data and developing a critical gaze I was pleased to talk with Prof Leif Isaksen, Professor in Digital Humanities at the University of Exeter, about computational approaches to research and some of the potential impacts of AI on Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS). The research talk podcast forms part of a miniseries […]
Author: Peter Findlay
Subject Matter Expert, Digital Scholarship, Content and Discovery, Jisc
Working with Jisc's Higher Education members to improve access to to their special collections in the age of data-centric arts, humanities and social science research.
I am a site admin for this website.
The fear of AI The focus of this post is the fears we have of AI technologies and what we might do about them. Having spoken to lots of librarians about AI, it is clear that many are concerned about the technologies but do not have time to address their fears in practical ways. Policy […]
“Artificial Intelligence: Where does it fit into your library strategy?” Back in April five UK library sector leaders debated this topic. The debate was followed by a workshop at which participants proposed nine potential strategic actions to address skills and knowledge gaps for librarians to help prepare the sector for AI. Following on from the […]
Tobias Blanke, Professor of Humanities and AI at the University of Amsterdam, suggests that everyone can benefit from learning to code. As digital skills are becoming ever more vital, we worked with the Programming Historian (PH) and The National Archives to develop tutorial articles focused on computational skills for digital collections. A partnership to support computational […]
This post forms part of our signposting series for collections as data, AI and computational approaches to Arts and Humanities for libraries and archives. Nice clear AI information Here’s a nice simple guide to AI from the BBC and you can also try our very own Explore AI site to try your hand at some […]
Is AI for me? Perspectives from the humanities is a new podcast mini-series that is part of the Jisc Research Talk podcasts. There’s been an outburst of AI-talk in the last few months, but it’s not often that we hear about what it means to engage with AI in the context of the humanities. Over six episodes, […]
Why are we only talking about ChatGPT? This post is part of a series about approaches academic libraries in the UK might take in response to the emergence of AI. Their purpose is to signpost to relevant initiatives and to encourage debate about the way ahead. As ChatGPT is not the only Large Language […]
Some tips for academic librarians wanting to make sense of AI This the first in a series of posts about Collections as Data, AI, computational approaches to Arts and Humanities, signposting to resources, networks, reports and events How should academic libraries respond to the maturing of Artificial Intelligence? Analysis of recent interviews with five librarians […]
Outcomes of task and finish group investigations into the preparation of datasets for Artificial Intelligence (AI) Recently we established a short-form task and finish group, made up of senior academics and librarians to explore the question: Are universities sufficiently prepared to support the development of datasets and computational methods for data driven research in the […]
I thought it might be interesting to look at some material for those out exploring during International Women’s Day. I ran some searches on the UK Medical Heritage Library collection on Historical Texts and I found three texts which are interesting for the amateur, but they could start a whole new area of research for the […]
This post, by our colleague Dr. Hannah Woodward-Reed, forms part of a series on the Jisc-Wiley history of science digital archive. It is notable that this resource is free to Jisc members in the UK. February 28th marks Rare Disease Day, raising awareness and working towards equity of healthcare and access to diagnosis, healthcare and […]
This is the second of a series of posts on the Jisc-Wiley history of science digital archive by our colleague Dr. Hannah Woodward-Reed. It is notable that this resource is free to Jisc members in the UK. Ahead of this year’s International Day of Women and Girls in Science, we are exploring the archive of […]
This is the first of a series of posts on the Jisc-Wiley history of science digital archive by our colleague Simon Bell of Wiley. It is notable that this resource is free to Jisc members in the UK. Wiley Digital Archives Goes Radioactive As part of the development of the major Jisc-Wiley history of science […]
Further to my earlier post about the special Programming Historian series we have developed in partnership with the National Archives, I thought you might be interested in the author briefing event. It will take place on 23 September. Please register via this Eventbrite page. During the call, the Programming Historian team will explore the invitation […]
Researchers often tell us that they have problems when they want to use digital methods to interrogate large archives, special collections, masses of catalogue records or aggregations of metadata. We are therefore pleased to announce a new partnership between Jisc, the Programming Historian and The National Archives (TNA) to publish a series of articles to […]
Jisc’s Digital Archival Collections (DAC) advisory group met again recently. We discussed some interviews we have undertaken with acquisition librarians. The group thinks that DACs need to be taken as seriously as books and journals in library planning because they are increasingly purchased from budgeted allocations, not from under-spend. Purchasing them, therefore, is dependent on […]
Some members of the HE content team have been discussing issues about the collaborative digitisation of collections. We know, from conversations with our Digital Archival Collections advisory group, that there is a thirst for institutions to work together to make their collections available. We were wondering about the barriers to making this happen. Institutions are […]
At a digital archival collections advisory (DAC) group meeting earlier this month, we discussed the increasing need for higher education libraries to purchase DACs which are more relevant to teaching, especially as most teaching has now moved online. Academics on some arts and humanities courses are increasingly using primary source archives to teach, often with […]
This post is part of an ongoing series about digital archival collections (DACs) and launches our new guide: purchasing digital archives; guidelines for librarians when negotiating with publishers, which provides guidance on the purchasing of these collections for librarians needing to negotiate licences with publishers. Previously our research has shown that these collections provide valuable […]
At such a time of public concern, it can be interesting to examine how our ancestors viewed and dealt with epidemic diseases. I was looking at the UK Medical Heritage Library (UKMHL) which we provide as an open collection via our Historical Texts service and came across: Annals of influenza, or epidemic catarrhal fever in […]