The National Archives (TNA) holds a collection over 400,000 individual forms deposited to the Stationers’ Company between 1842 and 1912 to register ownership and copyright of photographs, paintings and drawings.
The forms include a description of the work being registered, along with the name and place of abode of the copyright owner (or proprietor of copyright) and the name and place of abode of the copyright author (the artist or photographer). The forms were then dated and signed by the owner and in many cases a copy of the work (in the form or a print or sketch) was attached to the form.
The entire photography collection has been catalogued at item level and we have access to the full metadata. This however is only semi-structured and it requires complex data manipulation to be effectively used for digital research, let alone visualisations.
As part of an internal project running from October 2024 to February 2025, we have decided to use this metadata to organise a hybrid digital hackathon to test data cleaning and processing methodologies, to experiment with visualizations and interesting forms of storytelling related to the world of early photography, as well as to find out the benefits and constraints of running a hybrid collaborative hackathon.
By experimenting collaboratively with tools such as AI, network analysis, entity disambiguation, and visualization we want to bring new perspectives to exploring archival collections through metadata.
During the hackathon we will encourage collaboration between teams, each working on different parts of the problem but sharing data, tools and ideas. To read more about the metadata collection and what we plan to do during the events, visit: https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/exploring-early-photography-through-collaborative-digital-experimentation/
The hackathon will take place over two days, on 27-28 January 2025 both onsite and online.
Exploring early photography through collaborative digital experimentation
London, The National Archives and and online
27-28 January 2025
Details: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/collaborative-digital-experimentation-copyright-and-early-photography-tickets-1105454266469
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