Weeknotes #11: EEAAO
A slightly delayed note after a week where everything seemed to be happening everywhere all at once.
What happened this week?
An energising Monday morning discussion on the Library's Moving Image Archive. We know that the current online experience is not up to scratch, but once you start pulling a thread it's hard to know where to stop, including exploring supporting infrastructure and what could be achieved with significant investment. I was pleased to see a recognition that change should be led by first understanding our current and future audiences.
Our new Head of HR has started and has hit the ground running. We're trying not to overwhelm her with all of things, but she's already spotting problems and setting out clear next steps.
An early morning coffee and catch-up with Josh Ryan-Saha, Director of Traveltech at the Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI). We pondered ways to connect up cultural organisations, academia and tourism data in ways that lead to change on the ground. Not easy.
My annual appraisal followed on Wednesday. Almost three years into my role there was a temptation to highlight a lack of progress and the fundamental barriers to change. Out of ten major priorities I probably have to park half of them, focus on two key areas and nudge the rest along. Amina was great at unpicking my self-critical tendencies, pointing at progress and reminding me to be comfortable with compromise.
A major procurement needed a reset mid-week. More compromise but the pain of accepting delays had to be balanced with getting the right partner on what is a complex project involving multiple teams. I am somewhat comforted by the fact that other organisations seem to be struggling in the same areas.
Continual delays and huge price increase across hardware are a worry. It's not going to get better for a while.
In more positive vibes, the week ended in glorious sunshine and another GovCamp Scotland catch-up. We've confirmed a date for this year's event and assigned roles, with teaser announcements to follow. It was nice to hang out afterwards in the shared workspace at EFI with John Fitzgerald as we tidied up inboxes before the weekend.
A new AI Strategy
The Scottish Government announced their new AI Strategy on Friday. First impressions: it's a substantial piece of work and very much weighted towards enterprise and economic growth. I have a few gripes about the culture sector not being in the room and the everywhere/everywhere approach: "if we increase our activity at every layer of the stack we will achieve our purpose". As John Fitzgerald notes, it's also sad to see the AI Alliance come to an end in its current form.
From a Library perspective, I would've liked to see a focus on data as a foundational layer in the "stack". I'm interested in finding out more about the Innovation Programme and Data Matchmaking Pilot - with the usual caveats that innovation must come with investment and work is required before access is opened up to public‑sector datasets.
More AI things
- UK Government backtracks on it's consultation and is "listening" as authors publish "empty book" in protest over AI using their work
- What 81,000 people want from AI (according to Anthropic in scrolly form)
- Google scraps medical AI search function - "crowdsourced amateur medical advice" feels like a bad idea and was a bad idea.
- Some good thinking in this article by Dave Hansen, partly written in response to the University of Virginia's Archival AI Protocol. This can seem like niche stuff for both Libraries and Archives and it's important to recognise where practice and collections differ between the two. That said, questions of how, where and why we allow global corporations access to cultural and public data will remani central to the current AI debate.
Libraries are not going to out-monopoly the monopolists by asserting control over their collections. But they can do something far more important: they can ensure that institutions, researchers, and communities they serve have a seat at the table—not by withholding access, but by building the infrastructure that supports open, accountable research of every kind.
Dave Hansen
- This post from fellow park-runner, Hugh Wallace, beautifully frames a thoughtful approach AI:
Try to find a way of cutting through the noise of others. Read widely, talk to sensible peers, consult your colleagues about the genuine challenges they face, ignore 97% of LinkedIn posts, experiment with tech if you've got the bandwidth, but don't jump to conclusions too soon.
Some other stuff
- As ever, I enjoyed these metaphors from Ash Mann comparing digital teams to Mycelial Networks ("when stretched, overloaded or damaged, the whole system can become very fragile very quickly") and Digital Ghost Acreage ("capacity exists and is essential, but is not formally owned, funded, understood, or acknowledged").
- Service Level Agreements for Content Teams - Lauren Pope proposes SLAs as "an act of care", a way "to build the case for content as a strategic function, not just a service desk."
- Bad Services - Lou Downe on fixing services that don't work (out in May).
- What was Doge? - in case you weren't infuriated enough with those videos of Doge employees trying to explain DEI. Rember when they promised to rebuild the US Social Security digital service in 90 days?
- National Galleries Scotland are seeking 7 (Seven) new trustees
Watching, listening, reading, doing
📖 Reading is the thing that drops off when things get super busy.
📺 Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere - interesting to watch this with the boy, and this Instagram post provided some further reflection.
🎞️ I Swear ⭐⭐⭐⭐ #@!## good.
🎞️ Liquorice Pizza ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Braced for the film's delibrately off-kilter tone and power dynamics, I enjoyed this a lot more on second viewing.
🏃 Arthur's Seat was tackled in high winds and I ran 5k out to complete Porty Park Run. I suggested reversing the route one week, but was told it may upset the folk who like things to stay the same. Plus, admin.
🎧 Some more upbeat tunes in rotation to match the Spring sunshine, including Anything Could Happen, The Clean and Float On, Modest Mouse:
Alright, already, we'll all float on, alright / Don't worry, even if things end up a bit too heavy, we'll all float on" / Alright, already, we'll all float on...
