GLAM Data Science Network

This project is in its early stages, but you’re welcome to take a look around, or get in touch by opening a new issue on our GitHub page.

We are librarians, curators, archivists, cataloguers, researchers, software engineers, marketers, finance & HR professionals and others working in the GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums) & Cultural Heritage sector.

We help each other and others to develop confidence, understanding and skills in statistics and data science to make the most of data, improve decision making and ensure data is used ethically in the Cultural Heritage sector.

Sound interesting? You’re one of us too!

Join the mailing list for news on regular meetings, events, and other developments as they happen!
More ways to get involved
More information about the project

Project supported by a Software Sustainability Institute Fellowship. Web hosting provided free by Netlify.

Latest updates

Meeting: November 2021

Well, it’s a bit later than planned, but here is a summary of our November meeting, held on Monday 8th. We had a fairly broad ranging discussion about resources for developing coding skills, and about other groups & networks we might link up with. I’ve summarised the links and resources below. Links & resources Book recommendations As a bit of an icebreaker, we each mentioned one book we’d read recently:...

Regular meetings beginning 2nd Monday of the month

Thanks to everyone who expressed a preference for days and times to meet. By far the most popular slot was 4pm (UK time) on Mondays, and I’ve arbitrarily picked the 2nd in the month, so the first of these will be 4pm BST (3pm UTC), Monday 13 September. As a reminder, we will be using the Lean Coffee format to decide the agenda on the day: I’ll open a board for suggestions the week before, and then items to discuss will be voted on at the start of the meeting by the people there: the top few will get a 10ish minute timeslot for discussion....

Network update: keeping in touch and future meetings

We had our second network meeting this week and had a really productive discussion about ways for staying in touch and sharing knowledge, and how to run future meetings. Read on for more! ...

Meeting #1: summary

10 May 2021 saw the first meeting of the GLAM Data Science Network. It was great to see a mix of people from different backgrounds, ranging from computer science to more humanities subjects. This will make a good base for the Network, as it opened up room for some interesting discussion. Jez was able to pose some interesting prompts during this meeting, which led us to having some main ideas about what we would hope to see from this Network:...

Roadmap for 2021: March update

The big thing that’s been missing from this site so far is an overview of what I’d like the next few months to look like, so this post is an attempt to fix that! Right now we’re in the “Launch” phase below, but after that it will be time to plough ahead, run some events and really start to figure out how to make this work for everyone. Don’t forget, we need help to get this thing off the ground!...

Help needed: preparing to launch!

Ok, I’ve tweeted and tooted, I’ve set up a website, I’ve had advice and guidance from some amazing people, but there’s something I need to do before we can go any further: I need to ask for help. See, the original project plan, pre-COVID, was to start with a small internal network within the British Library before starting to grow it externally. Once the pandemic arrived and made us all much more used to communicating and taking part remotely as well as face-to-face, it made sense to expand that earlier, since a larger network can reach a sustainable critical mass sooner....

First two draft network member personas

From The Turing Way Guide for Project Design: “A persona is a detail of an imaginary user or member, based on real-world observations and understandings of existing members or potential future members. It is meaningful when paired with pathways through which these personas engage with a project.” These two personas are an initial draft to get the ball rolling and suggest the type of people who might be interested in taking part in a GLAM Data Science network and why....

Personal goals and acknowledgements

I (Jez) have a couple of posts on my own blog that relate to plans for this community that I’d like to include by reference. One is a short reflection on my own motivations and goals for starting this community. Of course, these goals will be updated and extended as more people join in, but they at least provide a starting point. The other is a post acknowledging some of the other work that’s inspired this network....

Open Canvas

This is a one-page overview of the project, based on the Open Canvas template from Mozilla’s Open Leadership Training Series. Problem Data analysis in non-technical organisations is a lonely business: it’s hard to network, learn about good practice and develop as a professional, which makes it hard to stay excited and motivated. Cultural Heritage “data” sources and techniques are much richer and more diverse than many data science professionals are used to, and have unique challenges...

Original (pre-COVID) project brief

This document was drafted before the global pandemic of 2020! Not only does it describe an early, and somewhat incomplete, draft of “The Plan”, it takes no account of the wide-ranging changes to what’s possible under pandemic conditions, particularly restrictions on travel and face-to-face meetings. I’m publishing it for reasons of openness, to show how planning has progressed. Introduction This document is intended to provide a 2-page summary of the project to give someone a quick overview....