Collections as Data infrastructures: Perspectives from the United Kingdom

Mass digitised collections of libraries, archives and museums are increasingly conceptualised as data. These are used for creative projects, to increase economic performance or for data-driven research in the humanities. The various needs place high expectations on the memory institutions as data providers and on the potential of collections as data.

Dr Marco Humbel explores the question of what forms of infrastructure we need in order to fully exploit the potential of Collections as Data. In the UK, the £18.9 million “Towards a National Collection” (TaNC) programme is currently underway. This programme is currently funding five “Discovery Projects” to explore how such Collections as Data infrastructures could look like.

One of these Discovery Projects is the external page Sloane Lab. The aim of the Sloane Lab is to provide digital access to the information that describes Sir Hans Sloane's extensive collection.¹ In his lecture, Marco Humbel will introduce the ongoing research of the Sloane Lab project. He will focus on the perspectives and challenges of memory institutions when participating in collection as data infrastructures.

^{1: Information about the historical and colonial context of Sloane's collection is available at external page https://sloanelab.org/.}