Why bother?
This was the introduction to my talk on the results of my time as Creative Technologist-in-Residence at the State Library of Victoria. My slides, with my full notes are available online, but after a very strange year that has travelled from disappointment to exhilaration, I thought it was worth posting these words separately.
The work that I do, that I’ve been doing for the past 30 years, is focused on helping people find, use, and understand the wonderfully rich collections held by our libraries, archives, and museums – the GLAM sector. Much of it is quite practical, resulting in tools and applications that are used by a wide range of researchers. Some of it is playful, some of it is critical, and some of it is just weird.
You can browse through some of this history on wraggelabs.com. And if you’re interested in my current crop of tools you can head to the GLAM Workbench.
As some of you may know, I had a few setbacks at the beginning of this year which really made me wonder whether I wanted to continue doing this sort of work.
I mean, why bother?
I’m really grateful that this residency has given me a chance to refocus on the reasons why I do what I do.
I suppose my starting point is the fact that libraries can’t do everything themselves.
I’m thinking here specifically about the digital research space. There’s a lot that libraries, and other GLAM organisations, can do – provide search interfaces, APIs, downloadable datasets, documentation, and examples of how to access APIs and datasets using code. The sorts of things that the SLV LAB is doing.
I should pause here to unpack some acronyms. APIs deliver data in a form that machines can understand and process. Websites are for humans, APIs are for computers. APIs are also building blocks which can be connected up to create new applications – and I’ll be showing some examples of this later on.
So there is much that GLAM organisations can do to support digital research. But it will never be enough. Researchers – whether they be academics or family historians – will always want more. It is in the nature of research to ask new questions, to head off in new directions.
But rather than see this as a source of tension, I see it as an opportunity for collaboration. An opportunity to cultivate the in-between spaces where research methods, tools, and results can feed back into the contextual frameworks of GLAM collections. Where GLAM organisations can share and celebrate the work that’s done with their data. Where all can find inspiration, ideas and support.
We’ve tended to call this sort of stuff infrastructure, but I think that really downplays the human aspect. The research sector has started to develop the funding and career structures necessary to allow people to build and maintain these infrastructures, but we need more. We need to recognise that a single tool, developed by an individual without institutional support, can be just as important as a multi-million dollar platform. Passion is precious and needs to be protected.
Most of all, we need to keep a focus on the ethical imperatives – the reasons why we bother and why it matters. For me it boils down to openness and generosity. I have benefited greatly from the openness and generosity of others, and I want to pass that on. It’s the glue we need to hold those in-between spaces together; the sustenance we need to maintain our enthusiasm in the face of all the crap; the inspiration we need to try something new.
Initiatives like the SLV LAB are important, not just because they foster innovation, but because they invite new ideas in. They even give space for ageing hackers like me to spend some dedicated time doing what they love – crafting new pathways for people to explore our glorious GLAM collections.