Presenting

I was honoured to be asked to visit the National Archives in Kew to talk about AI strategy. The whole event was streamed and you can jump to my bit at 5 hours, 5 minutes.

The National Archives Media

@UkNatArcMedia

Publish open, publish freely, publish often says @edent during his #ArchivesAI talk @UkNatArchives

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Susan Corrigall

@SueCorrigall

Reminder from @edent that ‘garbage in = garbage out’ - explanation and understanding of corpus dataset is crucial #ArchivesAI

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Terence Eden is on Mastodon

@edent

The @UkNatArchives are *such* spoilsports!
#ArchivesAI pic.x.com/dhewhdh1lv

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Accessibility

Not strictly my job, but I got roped into a very depressing conversation about accessibility. Websites have to be accessible - that's literally the law - so it's upsetting to speak to people in other departments who just don't get it.

• "Surely that doesn't apply to us?" - yes, yes it does.
• "We don't have the time for this!" - tough.
• "Do blind people even use our website?" - OMG!

ARGH! I think we mostly convinced them that accessibility is a priority, but I'm sad that we're still running up against objections.

In Print

The Economist mentioned me in their recent story about BlockChain hype. They're referencing my Leonardo da Vinci prank from earlier this year.

Reading List

What books I've read this week. Affiliate links ahead.

Fiction

• Stranger Things Happen - Kelly Link
  • A bizarre and inventive series of short stories. Each one of which I'd've happily read as a novel. Perfect mix of Gaiman and Lovecraft. I picked this up in a Humble Bundle years ago - and I wish I'd read it sooner.

Non-Fiction

• Secrets Of The National Archives - Richard Taylor
  • A gift from the TNA, and one of my few "paper" books" It's a fine ramble through some of the fascinating documents. Like being given a behind the scenes tour of the archive, fully of fun little nuggets. I'd love an ebook version so I could zoom into the lush images.
• Revolution in the Age of Social Media. The Egyptian Popular Insurrection and the Internet - Linda Herrera
  • Starts off weakly, assuming the reader is familiar with the then current situation in Egypt - but it quickly improves. I knew shamefully little about Egypt's recent history. This is as much a book about marketing, branding, and state sponsored intervention as it is about social media. A vital read.

The Domesday Book

From their press-release:

As part of this project to increase digital engagement we have used the QRpedia service to link some of our museum exhibits to articles on Wikipedia. In the on site museum at Kew, visitors can use their smartphones to scan QR (quick response) codes next to the exhibits. QR codes are barcodes that can be read by smartphones to link physical and virtual documents.

The QR codes will allow visitors to the museum to explore more information on particular displays than can physically be provided on written captions. They can also deliver pages (where they exist) in the language of the user’s handset.

Visitors to the museum will also be invited to contribute their knowledge to The National Archives-related articles on Wikipedia.

There are 13 QRpedia codes dotted around the museum – here are some photos of a few of them.

Declaration of Independence

Grant of Arms

The team have done an amazing job. They placed codes in prominent positions and made sure they are well lit.

They have also created a display to explain what the QR codes do. They even include instructions on how to get on to the free WiFi if your phone doesn’t have a strong signal.

So, now legions of school-children and visiting tourists can get highly detailed information about the National Archive’s exhibits with a simple scan of a code.
Where next…?