I am very pleased to have been awarded a grant to develop the AURA network (Archives in the UK/ Republic of Ireland & AI): "Bringing together Digital Humanists, Computer Scientists & stakeholders to unlock cultural assets."
AURA is funded by a joint programme between the Irish Research Council and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) in the UK (more information about this programme HERE). I will work with Annalina Caputo, Eirini Goudarouli, Mathieu d'Aquin and Larry Stapleton - as well as our Network Participants. Our Project Partners include the British Library; the National Library of Scotland; the National Library of Ireland; and the Irish Traditional Music Archive.
The AURA network is designed to unlock cultural assets that are preserved in digital archives closed to the public or difficult to access. The digital revolution has had a huge impact on archival collections: emails have largely replaced letters, government reports are now written in digital format. Yet, the vast majority of these born-digital records are inaccessible due to privacy, copyright or technical issues. By bringing together Digital Humanists, Computer Scientists and stakeholders (including policy makers), the network will design solutions to the problem of inaccessible records in digital archives.
The network focuses on three major themes, explored in each of the three workshops: "Open Data versus Privacy" (Workshop 1); "AI and Archives: Current Challenges and Prospects of Born-digital archives" (Workshop 2); "AI and Archives: What comes next?" (Workshop 3).
More information can be found on the AURA website.