BL Labs

About

People at BL Labs

BL Labs Team Members

Labs Manager Silvija Aurylaite

Labs Tech Lead Liam Green-Hughes

The first MVP and prototype of the future Data.bl.uk is by Labs Tech Lead Filipe Bento launched in 2022.

Department

Innovation and Science Department, lead by Maja Maricevic.

[Archive ONLY]

BL Labs established and leads the international GLAM Labs network. As of 08/09/2020 it has over 200 members.

This page covers the following topics:

Background to BL Labs

BL Labs was formed in 2012, within the Digital Scholarship department at the British Library. It supports and inspires the use of the Library’s data and digital collections in exciting and innovative ways through competitions, awards, event and presentations, exhibitions and collaborative projects.

BL Labs provides insights into the practice of digital research / scholarship at the British Library and helps shape the provision of some of its future digital services, tools, digital collections and data. It tries to ensure that the intellectual digital cultural heritage the British Library holds is accessible to everyone for research, inspiration and enjoyment. The BL Labs and Digital Research teams support and develop digital projects with British Library staff, researchers, software developers, educators, entrepreneurs, artists, community activists and the public from all over the world. You can read more about some of these projects in the BL Labs ‘Digital Projects Archive’, ‘Digital Scholarship case studies’ pages, posts on Digital scholarship blog and / or follow us on twitter @BL_Labs and @BL_DigiSchol.

BL Labs was funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and is now solely supported by the British Library.

International Gallery, Library, Archive and Museum (GLAM) Labs network

British Library Labs has helped create and lead a global network of over 200 people working at Gallery, Library, Archive and Museum (GLAM) Labs by helping to organise a number of international face-to-face events in September 2018 in London, UK and in March 2019 in Copenhagen, Denmark. It also schedules virtual meetings around topics such as peer to peer mentoring, how to open up digital collections, sharing failures, collaborative research, regional events, anti-racism work etc. You can join the mailing list, slack channel or follow the community on twitter. It’s a great way to connect with other colleagues if you work in Lab or if you are a researcher and simply want to get access to digital collections and data from other cultural heritage organisations around the world.

Open a GLAM Lab – the book!

'Open A GLAM Lab' open access book
Open a GLAM Lab is available as an open access publication.

In September 2019, together with 15 colleagues, BL Labs wrote an open access book in 5 days using the ‘Booksprint’ methodology (a direct participation from BL Labs manager at the time, Mahendra Mahey). We called it ‘Open a GLAM Lab’. Essentially, it’s a handbook on how to set up, maintain and ensure Labs flourish. It’s available to download here.

We are based at the British Library in St Pancras, London and are served by an Advisory Board and a Project Board who help us by giving us a steer when needed and to help manage the project. Past and present members are listed below:

Past Members of BL Labs

Mahendra Mahey
(2013 – 2021)
Adam Farquhar
(2013 – 2019) 		 
Ben O’Steen
(2013 – 2018)
Hana Lewis
(2016 – 2018)
Eleanor Cooper
(2018 – 2019)
  • Mahendra Mahey, Manager, BL Labs (2013 – 2021)
  • Adam Farquhar, former Head of Digital Scholarship at the British Library and former Principal investigator, BL Labs
  • Ben O’Steen, former Technical Lead, BL Labs
  • Hana Lewis, former Project Officer, BL Labs
  • Eleanor Cooper, former Project Officer, BL Labs and now International Engagement Manager


Advisory Board Members

Advisory board members give BL Labs a strategic steer and form part of the annual BL Labs Awards and Competition judging panel.


David De Roure		Tim Hitchcock
George Oates
 Andrew Prescott Bill Thompson Melissa Terras

Current Members

  • David De Roure, Professor of e-research, Oxford e-research Centre, University of Oxford and Turing Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute
  • Tim Hitchcock, Professor of Digital History, University of Sussex
  • George Oates, Director of Good, Form & Spectacle Ltd
  • Andrew Prescott, Professor of Digital Humanities (English Language), University of Glasgow
  • Bill Thompson, Principal Research Engineer, BBC
  • Melissa Terras, Professor of Digital Cultural Heritage at the University of Edinburgh‘s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences

Past Members

Josie FraserClaire Warwick
  • Josie Fraser, Head of Digital Policy at the Heritage Fund UK and Chair of Wikimedia UK
  • Claire Warwick, Professor, Department of English Studies and Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research) in the Vice-Chancellor’s Office, University of Durham

Previous observers on BL Labs Awards and Competition Judging panels

  • Armand Leroi, Professor of Evolutionary Developmental Biology, Imperial College, London (2019)
  • Rachel Neaman, Technology Leader, Non-Executive Director, Leadership Mentor and Coach (2018)
  • Josie Fraser (2017), Head of Digital Policy at the Heritage Fund UK and Chair of Wikimedia UK
  • Katherine Rooney, Account Manager at Delib (2016)
  • Louise Denoon, Executive Director Public Libraries and Engagement, State Library of Queensland (2015)

Keynote speakers at the annual BL Labs Symposium

  • Armand Leroi, Professor of Evolutionary Developmental Biology, Imperial College, London (2019)
  • Dan Pett, Head of Digital and IT, Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge (2018)
  • Josie Fraser, Head of Digital Policy at the Heritage Fund UK and Chair of Wikimedia UK (2017)
  • Melissa Terras, Professor of Digital Cultural Heritage at the University of Edinburgh‘s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (2016)
  • David De Roure, Professor of e-research, Oxford e-research Centre, University of Oxford and Turing Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute (2015)
  • George Oates, Director of Good, Form & Spectacle Ltd (2015)
  • Tim Hitchcock, Professor of Digital History, University of Sussex (2014)
  • Bill Thompson, Principal Research Engineer, BBC (2013)
  • Andrew Prescott, Professor of Digital Humanities (English Language), University of Glasgow (2013)

Project Board Members (at the British Library)

The BL Labs project board is responsible for the management of BL Labs.

Current Members

Past Members

  • Adam Farquhar, former Head of Digital Scholarship
  • Eleanor Cooper, former Project Officer, British Library Labs and now International Engagement Manager
  • Jerry Shillito, Head of Operations South, Business Change
  • Kristian Jensen, Head of Collections and Curation
  • Richard Boulderstone, former Chief Digital Officer
  • Aly Conteh, former Head of Digital Research
  • Catherine Eagleton, former Head of Asian & African Collections
  • Hana Lewis, former Project Officer for British Library Labs
  • Ben O’Steen, former Technical Lead BL Labs

BL Labs Project Workers

People who have worked voluntarily at BL Labs:

  • Silvija Aurylaite, Rights WorkFlow Officer, British Library (worked at BL Labs 2013)
  • Wendy Durham, Library and Information Officer at the National Foundation for Educational Research (worked at BL Labs 2014 – 2019)
  • Jeffrey Brandon, Data Scientist (worked at BL Labs 2014 – 2015)
  • Dimitra Charalampidou, Librarian and Literacy Tutor (worked at BL Labs 2014 – 2015)
  • Edward Turner, Research Assistant (worked at Labs 2013)
  • Ting Ting Wang, Videographer and Photographer at The University of Nottingham Ningbo China (worked at BL Labs 2014 – 2015)
  • Filomena Barberio, Commercial Manager at Editions Modern, (worked at BL Labs 2015 – 2016)
  • Ioannis Lagamtzis, Scholarly Communication and Digital Humanities Librarian at Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences (worked at BL Labs 2013)
  • Nadaya Miryanova, Senior Music Editor and Contributor at Varsity Publications Ltd, Marketing Assistant at Direct Productions UK (worked at BL Labs 2017)
  • Ruby Dixon (worked at BL Labs 2017)
  • Virve Miettinen (worked at BL Labs 2018)
  • Eirini Goudarouli, Head of Digital Research Programmes, National Archives (worked at BL Labs 2015)

Other ‘Data’ and Digital Collections, Digital Research People at the British Library

Digital Research Team

Living with Machines Team (British Library Staff)

Research Services Team

Previous BL Labs project funding proposals

Below you can find funding proposals for the three phases of the BL Labs project to date:

Phase 1-3

Previous Project Evaluations

British Library Data Strategy

The British Library’s Data Strategy was published in 2017.

Datacite and FREYA

The British Library manages the DataCite service to locate, identify, and cite research data with the leading global providers of DOIs for research data.

The British Library is also involved in the FREYA project which aims to extend the infrastructure for persistent identifiers (PIDs) as a core component of open research, in the European Union and globally

Questions? Please email us at labs@bl.uk or follow us on twitter @BL_Labs