Harvard Library Computational Archival Science Unconference 2017 (Cambridge, Dec. 14, 2017)

The Harvard Library hosted an amazing day-long CAS unconference! See: https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/hlcas2017/home

The goal of this event was to connect scholars researching and developing computational methods for archives with archivists and librarians using computational methods to curate and manage collections, explore collaborations, and provide an open forum where a broad community of interest might engage with these ideas.

Topics included:

  • Lightning round talks from IEEE Computational Archival Science workshop participants
  • Breakout discussion groups:
    • Natural language processing
    • Computational curation of cultural heritage archives
    • Computational finding aids
    • Blockchain
  • Discussion of resources needed in order to further develop CAS

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Thank you to the amazing organizers and hosts (left to right): Jane Kelly (Historical & Special Collections Assistant for the Harvard Law Library), Jessica Farrell (Curator of Digital Collections for the Harvard Law Library), and Ceilyn Boyd (Research Data Program Manager for the Harvard Library).

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The Morning Session included talks on:

  • Generating astrophysics-specific language using recurrent neural networks to assess linguistic complexity between subdomains and using computer vision to identify sketches and graphs in archival astronomical observations
  • Harvard Library’s Colonial North America Project
  • Visualization in the Harvard FAS (Faculty of Arts & Sciences)
  • Collaborative Needs Activity with Harvard Library’s Special Collections and Archives Council (SPARC)

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The Afternoon Session included an Introduction to CAS by Richard Marciano (U. Maryland iSchool), Lightening Talks from many of the CAS#2 Workshop participants, and Breakout discussions:

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Speaker: William Underwood (U. Maryland iSchool)
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Speaker: Chris Prom (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
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Speaker: Tod Goodall (UT of Austin)
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Speaker: Tim Hutchinson (University of Saskatchewan Library, Canada)
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Jason Baron (Of Counsel, Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP)
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Speaker: Greg Jansen (U. Maryland iSchool)
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Speaker: Ji-Ping Lin (Academia Sinica, Taiwan)
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Speaker: Victoria Lemieux (University of British Columbia)
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Speaker: Tyler Smith (Adventium Labs)
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Speaker: Shiyun Chen (University of Maryland iSchool MLIS student)