August 2021

LC LABS LETTER
A Monthly Roundup of News and Thoughts from the Library of Congress Labs Team

Our Projects

2021 Innovator in Residence Speculative Annotation tool now live

2021 Innovator in Residence Courtney McClellan and the LC Labs team are proud to announce the launch of Speculative Annotation a public art project designed for students to annotate select items from the Library’s collections.

Through annotation tools such as stamps, text, multicolored highlighters, and other unique designs, Speculative Annotation offers a way of talking back to historical items from the Library of Congress’ vast holdings.

The experience is designed to be engaging, fun, and collaborative–you can even share your creations via URL! Read our launch story on Twitter, use the tool, and share your annotation with us on social media using #AnnotateLOC.

And don’t miss “Annotation as Artistic Act,” on Thursday, August 26 at 12 pm ET. McClellan will moderate a panel discussion about the overlap between contemporary art and education annotation practices. Panelists Amber Esseiva, Dr. Remi Kalir, and Dr. Antero Garcia will draw on their work in the museum and the classroom to discuss why annotation is relevant today. Register for the free event here //labs.loc.gov/events/.

More information and code for Speculative Annotation can be found on labs.loc.gov/work/experiments/annotation.

Computing Cultural Heritage in the Cloud: How values drive our process

Recently, the CCHC project team used the Signal blog to offer a view into the foundational thinking behind their processes and their work using agile techniques to approach the initiative.

In this post, Innovation Specialist Olivia Dorsey shares how the team developed a set of values to guide their efforts and communicate their progress. The work is both exploratory and inviting, as the team approaches challenges with an open mind and relies on the collective expertise and experiences of their colleagues to build understanding and inform future practice at the Library.

And in case you missed it, here’s an interview introducing Innovation Specialist Alice Goldfarb and more about working with the researchers.

Summer interns learn about collections as data, user needs, and prototyping in collaborative “design sprint”

This summer, seven students from across three internship programs joined the Digital Strategy team. Each used their time with LC Labs or the Connecting Communities Digital Initiative to focus on ways to broaden the reach and impact of existing and future initiatives with new users in mind.

In addition to their individual projects, our summer cohort worked collaboratively on an activity called the “data exploration design sprint.” They worked in two teams to a) understand a Library of Congress dataset, b) research a target user of this dataset and c) design a pen-and-paper prototype that would make this dataset more accessible or engaging for the imagined user.

In two recent interviews on the Signal Blog, teams Digivision and Datamagination share more about what they made and what they learned from the design sprint.

And don’t forget to check out their features on the Of the People program blog for more about about Joshua and Darshni‘s summer work.

Curio

• Grants are available NOW through the Of the People Community Collections program! Apply today to receive funding to produce cultural documentation about your community from the community’s own perspective. If you’re applying as part of an organization, please see Support and FAQ for organizations. If you’re applying as an individual, please consult the Support and FAQ for individuals post.

• A recent Signal post describes how and why By the People invited Library of Congress staff to transcribe collections at the start of the pandemic.

• Don’t forget about these awesome resources! The Collective Wisdom Handbook on crowdsourcing in cultural heritage and the Guide to Digital Scholarship at the Library of Congress are freely available for your use and reference.

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Questions? Contact LC Labs at [email protected]