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Talk at the University of Nottingham, 16 January 2013
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Electronic Beowulf Patent Office Express
Dunhuang Project Network catalogues
Digitisation of microfilm(Burney Newspapers)
Turning the Pages
• Initiatives for Access: pioneering British Library programme from 1993-1997
• Variety of experimental projects• High level of risk, but many of the
experimental projects have turned into key services such as the online catalogue, newspaper digitisation and online patent access
• PLURAL, TRANSVERSAL AND GENERATIVE
• This translates to: no one single approach, piece of kit or infrastructure which will enable us to deliver, master or manage the digital.
• The digital is shape shifting, so it adapts to our interests and preoccupations
• It is (and should be) like riding a tiger.
lichfield.as.uky.edu
www.connectedhistories.org
Model of Newcomen Steam Engine at the University of Glasgow repaired by James Watt in 1765.
A plaything to start with, but ‘everything became science in his hands’
Not immediately disruptive.
Partnership with Boulton and move to Birmingham was key.
Development of Sheffield as a steel city
• 1740: Huntsman’s first experiments with crucible steel• 1770: Huntsman’s process begins to be used by other
Sheffield cutlers• 1786: steam power first used to power hammers in the city • 1851: less than a quarter of city’s workers in heavy industries• 1859: Bessemer opens his new steelworks in Sheffield
because he wanted to shock the conservative steelmakers there
• 1891: two thirds of city’s workers in heavy industries• The creation of a ‘steel city’ took over 150 years – perhaps
even longer
Sidney Pollard on the Industrial Revolution in Sheffield and Birmingham
“a visitor to the metalworking areas of Birmingham or Sheffield in the mid nineteenth-century would have found little to distinguish them superficially from the same industries a hundred years earlier. The men worked as independent sub-contractors in their own or rented workshops using their own or hired equipment … These industries .. were still waiting for their Industrial Revolution”
Changes to Environment
• Wheels powered by steam• New gadgets available to speed up tasks such as
stamping and cutting• Workshop lit by gas and has water supply• Railways improve distribution• Cheap advertising increases demand• Is much of what we are seeing similar to the
experience of the ‘small mester’ in the industrial revolution?
The Industrial Revolution was by no means as ‘transformative’ as the Olympic opening ceremony might suggest:• Impact often very localised and patchy• Micro invention just as important as large-
scale innovation• Social as important as technical: Lunar Society• Economic growth hard to show: Crafts
suggests annual economic growth of just 2%• Changes in communication, advertising,
access to markets as important as chane in manufacturing
What of Other Transformations?
“the Gutenberg Bible led to religious reformation while the Web appears to be leading towards social and economic reformation. But the Digital Industrial revolution, because of the issues and phenomena surrounding the Web and its interactions with society, is occurring at lightning speed with profound impacts on society, the economy, politics, and more”.
Michael Brodie, Verizon
Anne Alexander and Miriyam Aouragh:
“the Egyptian activists we interviewed rightly reject simplistic claims that technology somehow caused the 2011 uprisings, and they say it undermines the agency of the millions of people who participated in the movement that brought down Hosni Mubarak”
“platitudes do not help us understand the dual character of the Internet: It empowers and disempowers”
“we propose a shift away from perspectives that isolate “the Internet” from other media by examining the shift in media architecture exposed by the powerful synergy between social media and satellite broadcasters during the January 25 uprising”
“we call for an understanding of the dialectical relationship between online and offline political action. We argue that without one, the other cannot have meaning. To a large extent, Internet spaces and tools were the choice of young revolutionaries in Egypt because they were already the spaces and tools that people of their generation had chosen for communication in daily life”.
‘The Egyptian Experience: Sense and Nonsense of the Internet Revolution’, International Journal of Communication 5 (2011)
.
