Contextualising Email Archives Project – Organizational History Network

Our AHRC-funded project, Contextualizing Email Archives has recently finished and we are proud to share with you one of our major outputs: the Dotcom-Archive website!

Our new website tells the history of a Dotcom start-up company through its emails, opening a window into the first digital revolution. Our very own desktop assistant, Mr Gummy, guides you through four vignettes giving background information and directions. The vignettes deal with claims of the end of strategy in the Dotcom-era, burning through investor cash, trying to figure out how to make money from software and platform business models, and how to take a digital venture into international markets. These stories can be read on their own or used for teaching.

The website is part of our wider AHRC-funded project. We believe emails are a valuable source of historical record, particularly for those wishing to understand the organizations of the digital era. Our project delivers two distinct outputs – the Dotcom-Archive website, and the EMCODIST search prototype that we used to create it.

Stay tuned for updates, as we’re looking forward to announcing some more exciting plans on here soon. Until then, you can read more about our project in our open access publications:

AI & Society

IEEE Big Data conference paper

“Contextualising Email Archives” is a UK/US collaboration funded by UK Research and Innovation and led by the University of Bristol. Other partners are the National Archives (UK), Hagley Museum and Library (US), University of Maryland, and De Montfort University. The Dotcom-Archive website was developed by GreenHat Bristol and realised by ResearchIT Bristol.

Next week our AHRC-funded project on “Contextualising email archives” will be presenting at two digital archives events – at the same time!

Adam will present follow on work at the third and final AURA event (16 March, 10:30-17:00), while I will be presenting our work at the Digital Archives Learning Event (DALE) “Strictly on the Download” event run by The National Archives (16 March 2-4pm).

Information on the AURA event follows below and you can book here.

Information on the the DALE event follows after the AURA information, and you can book here.

Artificial Intelligence and Archives: What comes next?

This final workshop will bring together all key actors in the archive “circuit”: from creators of data, to archivists and to users (thereby crossing the boundaries between Computer Scientists and Humanities Scholars) with the aim of planning new projects on AI and Archives.

Workshop 3 is organised by the University of Edinburgh in partnership with the AURA project team.

Tuesday 16th March

Programme:

10:30 – 10:40 Welcome (Lise Jaillant and Melissa Terras)
10:40 – 11:40 Keynote presentation, “Can Archives make AI Better?”

– Professor Andrew Prescott, University of Glasgow

Chair: Bea Alex, University of Edinburgh

10 minute break
11:50 – 12:50 Focus on Digital Humanities

– Dr Larry Stapleton, “The INSYTE Cooley Laboratory, Waterford Institute of Technology: A Survey of Key Themes, Recent Research and Future Directions”

– Angeliki Tzouganatou, University of Hamburg, “AI, openness and participation in digital cultural archives”

– Dr Jennifer O’Mahoney, Waterford Institute of Technology, “The role of born digital data in confronting a difficult and contested past through digital storytelling”

Chair: Rachel Hosker, University of Edinburgh

1 hour lunch break
13:50 – 14:50 Focus on machine learning/ AI techniques

– Dr Giorgio Maria Di Nunzio, University of Padova, “Bias and Fairness in AI: New Challenges with Open Data?”

– Professor Matthieu d’Aquin, National University of Ireland, Galway, “AI for archives and collections: From processing metadata to analysing content”

– Bram van der Warf, “What comes next? AI for discovery or destruction?”

Chair: Rachel Foss, British Library

15 minute break
15:05 – 15:45 Focus on Ethics

– Dr Jenny Bunn and Mark Bell, The National Archives, “Archives and AI: What now?”

– Dr Adam Nix, De Montfort University, “Finding light in dark archives: Using AI to connect context and content in email”

Chair: David Canning, Cabinet Office

15:45 – 16:45 Roundtable discussion

Melissa Terras; Joe Nockels; Rachel Hosker; Mike Bennet; Kirsty Lingstadt; Anthea Seles

16:45 – 17:00 Short talk and closing remarks (Dr Annalina Caputo, Dublin City University)

Digital preservation in action

About this Event

‘Strictly on the download: digital preservation in action’ will explore how services are utilising digital preservation tools and resources to take next steps in delivering effective and high quality projects, and to think about the needs of a new generation of digital researchers. The event will also include an update on ‘Plugged In, Powered Up’, The National Archives’ strategy to increase digital capacity across the archive sector.

DALE is the Digital Archives Learning Exchange, a network facilitated by The National Archives to explore digital challenges, build capacity and improve digital skills across the sector.