Hacking
cultural heritage collections

to understand the limits of access

Tim Sherratt ⚬ @wragge

https://slides.com/wragge/hacking-collections/

play along

a hack can be elegant or kludgy, authored from scratch or patched together and remixed — the important thing is getting things done, pushing the boundaries of what the humanities can do, what effects it can have in the world, and where.

Mark J Olson, 'Hacking the humanities: Twenty-first-Century literacies and the ‘becoming other’ of the humanities'

–

search engines lie

https://transcribe.realfaceofwhiteaustralia.net/#/

searching for 'white australia policy'

  • Advanced search for series
  • Exact phrase 'white australia policy'
  • Include notes!

try it yourself

https://trove-titles.herokuapp.com/

A classic hack

http://timsherratt.org/research-notebook/historic-hansard/notes/investigating-the-hansard-black-hole/

HANSARD BLACK HOLE

http://dhistory.org/querypic/ll/

TBE

Try it yourself

  • search for 'tbe'
  • play with the facets

NOT everything is digitised

They're just different

https://plot.ly/dashboard/wragge:494/present

ARTICLES PER YEAR

try it yourself

  • Go to QueryPic
  • Click on 'Create'
  • Click on 'Query url'
  • Copy & paste this url:
http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/result?q=+

http://timsherratt.org/research-notebook/aggregated-archives/notes/naa-functions-view/

functions by quantity

http://timsherratt.org/research-notebook/aggregated-archives/notes/naa-functions-view/

functions by items digitised

access is not always open

https://insidestory.org.au/withheld-pending-advice/

Try it yourself

  • Advanced search for items
  • Optionally enter a series ID
  • Select 'Closed' from 'Access status'

http://insidestory.org.au/withheld-pending-advice/

comparing harvests

Hack or be hacked

https://glitch.com/edit/#!/trove-title-bot

bots for everyone

QueryPic deconstructed