Weeknote #29: Departures
A much shorter note from a condensed three-day week. Things are a little quieter at the Library through the Summer (although the noise outside the office is ramping up with the swarm of tourists and street performers). I'm trying harder take some holiday while there's time and space - and to not check emails on those days. We also waved the boy off on a trip to France with three friends. Combining teenage brains always trends towards the lowest common denominator, but they will be in their element climbing hills and conquering boulders.
What happened this week?
A lot of time spent planning for newly-funded projects with UKRI and EPCC, including setting out new job descriptions and chatting with a range of potential collaborators. My main take way is that project titles are hard, especially if you try to avoid the dreaded 'backronyms'.
I managed to block out some time to update our Digital Routemap, marking off competed tasks and re-prioritising across five major workstreams. As Ross Ferguson has noted, keeping roadmaps (or, routemaps) up to date is absolutely essential, but also hard work.
On Wednesday I dipped into an RLUK online session on Building Digital Capability. Karen Abel, Product Owner at University of Leeds, provided a great overview of the Digital Library Infrastructure project (DLIP) - a multi-year, £4m+ programme with a core team 30 staff. Key lessons included: defining 3-month packages of work with dedicated workstreams, maintaining open/frequent communications, and, crucially, being comfortable with ambiguity.
Digital Curator, Nora MacGregor, was also fab on the British Library's longstanding Digital Scholarship staff training programme. My main takeaway: setting out AI as a 'normal technology' has helped frame discussions and focus on organisational contexts.
A great anniversary meal on Thursday at Cardinal in the New Town. The midweek set lunch felt a bit like a cheat code.
I ended the week saying a fond farewell to John Giblin, as he departs his role at National Museums Scotland. He recalled some memorable away days and spoke about forming family through work. Scotland's loss is Wales' gain.
AI and data things
- Gary Marcus on how the US should react as Moonshot.AI announced their high-performing open-weight model.
- Who pays for the commons? - setting out the conditions for an effective AI levy that protects and strengthens the open web.
- OpenAI admits responsibility for an AI-powered attack on Hugging Face :/
- The National Data Library has launched a Data Manual providing guidance on creating, managing, sharing and reusing public sector data.
- In timely fashion the UK government has put out a Call for Evidence on Data Regulation in the Age of AI.
Interesting things
- A new EU report emphasises (again) that investing in public libraries benefits society and democracy in the long run.
- The Library's Màiri Lafferty unpacks what we actually mean by "discovery" for online cultural collections:
In libraries, museums and archives we talk a lot about search, and increasingly about AI. We also spend time thinking about orientation, navigation and user journeys. But we rarely stop to define discovery itself, even though it underpins how people actually engage with collections.
- I've been enjoying Russell Davies' video posts on useful work concepts - see Bikeshedding and Fredkin's Paradox.
Watching, listening, reading, doing
🎬The Odyssey (Imax)⭐⭐⭐⭐ Did it live up to the hype? There are some iconic imagery and set pieces, including Samantha Morton as Circe. I left feeling a little disappointed by the clunky opening and simplified dialogue. It probably deserves a second viewing now I'm aware of the narrative arc.
📺 Ann Droid (iPlayer) ⭐⭐ Diane Morgan's robot steals every scene, but is surrounded by a weak script and thinly-drawn characters.
📺 I finally succumbed to Apple TV's insistence I watch Silo. So, far, it's ok ⭐⭐⭐
🎧 Cue the "hello fellow kids" meme, but I'm enjoying Music, Fashion, Film from Chalie xcx.
(Special thanks to Ash Mann this week who provided some local Swedish knowledge as we plan for a Scandinavian adventure next Summer.)
