British Library

Permanent URI for this collection

https://dspace-demo.pcgacademia.eu/handle/123456789/294

The British Library Research Repository is an open access repository for the research produced by staff and research associates of the British Library. Research informs and supports almost every aspect of our work, be it curation, conservation, preservation, resource discovery, digital innovation, cultural programming or learning. Whether it’s a major exhibition or a new way to discover or understand a unique part of our collections, it has been enabled by staff research. The outputs of that research have important value for future researchers and we want to make them discoverable and accessible for everybody.

Repository aims

1. Provide a reliable source of information about research undertaken by British Library staff, individually or in collaboration with other research organisations.
2. Provide a single point of open access to our full-text research outputs wherever possible.
3. Make our research easier to find, and enhance the contribution we make to UK and international research.
4. Respond to the open access expectations of our research funders.

Full item page

Browse

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2

Data analysis and network visualisation as tools for curating hybrid correspondence archives
2025
McKean, Callum
;
Randall, Cameron
The Harold Pinter Archive at the British Library contains correspondence dating from 1977 to 2008, including his e-mail archive. In total, the correspondence strand of the archive contains c.20,000 paper letters and c.3500 e-mails. This project used data analytics (in Python) and network visualisation (in Gephi) to interrogate the ways in which digital and analogue correspondence function together within Pinter’s literary archive. The attendant paper reflects upon what this analysis might mean for archivists, curators and researchers working with hybrid correspondence collections in the context of Digital Humanities and Artificial Intelligence based research methodologies. The paper includes an analysis of what an email is both materially and functionally—what are its constituent parts and in what ways is it like and unlike a physical letter, as well as a discussion of how we can leverage the highly structured nature of e-mail data to our advantage using computational techniques, and the limitations of these approaches to socalled “dark archives”. Network visualisations are used to represent correspondence visually in order to shed light on the activities it represents; particularly literary collaboration and administration. The paper concludes with an attempt to draw conclusions from these analyses and to think about their implications for repositories and researchers collecting and using hybrid correspondence collections. The Python code produced for the project is collection agnostic and available under a Creative Commons Licence, meaning that any collecting repository holding email archives in MBOX format can use it to extract GDPR compliant metadata from their collections and visualise them in Gephi.
3 26
Reimagining the Humanities Book: Bringing Living With Machines to Life Through Experimental Publishing Workflows and Open Research Practices
2025
Gallon, Emma
;
Bowman, Jamie
Limited options currently exist for humanities researchers looking to engage with open research practices and experimental forms in book publishing. The adapted publishing workflows and formats used for the experimental open access book project, Living with Machines, offer a model for reuse by publishers and authors.
2 24

Browse

Recent Submissions