Hi all,

The results of Valentina's survey are at
https://web.archive.org/web/20250805133215/https://blogs.bl.uk/digital-scholarship/2025/07/automatic-text-recognition-in-cultural-heritage-institutions-survey-analysis.html
- and thank you to everyone who responded!

Following Valentina's survey, we have a question about how people record
the use of automatic text recognition.

Do you know of any standards or processes for providing information about
the use of AI/ML tools to create transcriptions for metadata for
collections management or public interfaces?

I know that some libraries (like the BnF's Gallica) share OCR error rates,
and others include information about the software/software version/date of
processing in ALTO files, but is everyone doing this in a slightly bespoke
way, or are any shared conventions or standards emerging?

I’ve had related conversations with the British Library's Metadata
Standards team about recording the use of AI/ML to enhance metadata in MARC
fields for printed heritage items, but many of the items we're looking at
might be newspapers and periodicals catalogued differently, as well as
sound/AV and manuscript/archive files.

Cheers,
Mia

--------------------------------------------
http://openobjects.org.uk/
<http://twitter.com/mia_out>
https://hcommons.social/@mia
The Collective Wisdom Handbook: perspectives on crowdsourcing in cultural
heritage <https://britishlibrary.pubpub.org/>
Crowdsourcing our Cultural Heritage
<https://www.miaridge.com/crowdsourcing-our-cultural-heritage/>
P.S. I mostly use this address for list mail and don't check it daily


On Wed, 19 Mar 2025 at 13:54, Vavassori, Valentina <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> I am Valentina Vavassori, the Digital Curator for OCR/HTR at the British
> Library.
>
> We are currently researching different approaches to Automatic Text
> Recognition (ATR) in cultural heritage institutions as part of our work on
> our ATR workflow. As part of this work, we designed a survey and we would
> be really grateful if you can complete it.
>
> One question at the end of the survey asks if other institutions are
> interested in taking part in a working group on ATR and, if possible, to
> share their email so we can kick-start having meetings and discussions.
>
> The anonymised results of the survey will be published in order to help
> other institutions working with ATR.
>
> The survey takes approximately 5-10 minutes to complete and all the
> information is available here:
>
>
> https://blogs.bl.uk/digital-scholarship/2025/03/help-us-explore-automatic-text-recognition-in-cultural-heritage-.html
>
> Your participation is entirely voluntary, and you may withdraw at any time
> or omit any question you prefer not to answer.
>
> If you know anyone who might be interested in participating, please feel
> free to forward this invitation to them.
>
> Should you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me at
> [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> or [log in to unmask]<mailto:
> [log in to unmask]>
>
> Thank you very much for your time.
>
> Kind Regards,
> Valentina
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> [cid:[log in to unmask]]
>
>
> Dr Valentina Vavassori
> She/her
>
> Digital Curator, OCR/HTR
> Heritage Made Digital
>
> The British Library
> 96 Euston Road
> London
> NW1 2DB
>
> www.bl.uk<http://www.bl.uk/>
>
> ________________________________
>
>
>
>
>
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