Joint KCL-PSL Workshop on Advanced Methods, Workflows and Software Development for Written Cultural Heritage

On the 4th and 5th of June in London, the French Embassy in the U.K. and King’s College London are jointly funding a workshop to bring together domain experts from London and Paris to explore the difficulties surrounding governance, funding, and sustainability. The workshop will be coordinated by King’s Digital Lab and discussions will be led by researchers from KCL and PSL, including Peter Stokes, Ben Kiessling and Robin Tissot from the eScripta team. Here is the description of the workshop from the King’s Digital Lab site:

Analysis of hand written materials is by nature intensive and exacting work. Accordingly this topic is a tempting target for the application different digital approaches. Regardless, the joint challenges of unifying the study of multiple scripts, automating classification, and allowing for a workflow that incorporates the indispensable eye of the seasoned palaeographer remain worthy (and elusive) goals.

Beyond the technical hurdles of effective software development there is a minefield of sustainability questions around maintaining the stability, security, availability and continued relevance of any promising digital tool. Engaging and developing a supportive community can help to ease the burden on developers and institutions but the social platforms needed to build these communities require their own maintenance. …

In addition tackling these issues we aim to cement and build upon existing international research relationships in a collaborative spirit. These two focused days will produce new insight into these questions that will be relevant to Research Software Engineering beyond its application in the study of written communucation.

https://www.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/events/written-cultural-heritage-written-cultural-heritage-advanced-methods-workflows-and-software-development-approaches-digital-humanities-research/

This joint discussion is particularly important because we expect that Archetype (currently maintained by the King’s Digital Lab) will form one of the key blocks in eScriptorium, but it will also be an important opportunity to share experiences, ideas and practices in the two different countries and institutions. We at eScripta are grateful to King’s and the Embassy for this support, and we are looking forward to the workshop and the future collaborations that it might bring.