Talk at the University of Nottingham, 16 January 2013

14. • Initiatives for Access: pioneering British
Library programme from 1993-1997
• Variety of experimental projects
• High level of risk, but many of the
experimental projects have turned into
Electronic Beowulf Patent Office Express
key services such as the online
catalogue, newspaper digitisation and
online patent access
• PLURAL, TRANSVERSAL AND
GENERATIVE
• This translates to: no one single
Dunhuang Project Network catalogues approach, piece of kit or infrastructure
which will enable us to deliver, master or
manage the digital.
• The digital is shape shifting, so it adapts
to our interests and preoccupations
• It is (and should be) like riding a tiger.
Digitisation of microfilm Turning the Pages
(Burney Newspapers)

17. lichfield.as.uky.edu

19. www.connectedhistories.org

22. Visiblearchive.blogspot.co.uk

25. Model of Newcomen Steam Engine
at the University of Glasgow
repaired by James Watt in 1765.
A plaything to start with, but
‘everything became science in his
hands’
Not immediately disruptive.
Partnership with Boulton and move
to Birmingham was key.

26. Development of Sheffield as a steel
city
• 1740: Huntsman’s first experiments with crucible steel
• 1770: Huntsman’s process begins to be used by other
Sheffield cutlers
• 1786: steam power first used to power hammers in the city
• 1851: less than a quarter of city’s workers in heavy
industries
• 1859: Bessemer opens his new steelworks in Sheffield
because he wanted to shock the conservative steelmakers
there
• 1891: two thirds of city’s workers in heavy industries
• The creation of a ‘steel city’ took over 150 years – perhaps
even longer

27. Sidney Pollard on the Industrial Revolution in
Sheffield and Birmingham
“a visitor to the metalworking areas of
Birmingham or Sheffield in the mid nineteenth-
century would have found little to distinguish
them superficially from the same industries a
hundred years earlier. The men worked as
independent sub-contractors in their own or
rented workshops using their own or hired
equipment … These industries .. were still
waiting for their Industrial Revolution”

28. Changes to Environment
• Wheels powered by steam
• New gadgets available to speed up tasks such as
stamping and cutting
• Workshop lit by gas and has water supply
• Railways improve distribution
• Cheap advertising increases demand
• Is much of what we are seeing similar to the
experience of the ‘small mester’ in the industrial
revolution?

32. The Industrial Revolution was by no means as
‘transformative’ as the Olympic opening
ceremony might suggest:
• Impact often very localised and patchy
• Micro invention just as important as large-
scale innovation
• Social as important as technical: Lunar Society
• Economic growth hard to show: Crafts
suggests annual economic growth of just 2%
• Changes in
communication, advertising, access to
markets as important as chane in
manufacturing

33. What of Other Transformations?
“the Gutenberg Bible led to religious reformation
while the Web appears to be leading towards social
and economic reformation. But the Digital Industrial
revolution, because of the issues and phenomena
surrounding the Web and its interactions with
society, is occurring at lightning speed with
profound impacts on society, the economy, politics,
and more”.
Michael Brodie, Verizon

36. Anne Alexander and Miriyam Aouragh:
“the Egyptian activists we interviewed rightly reject simplistic claims that technology
somehow caused the 2011 uprisings, and they say it undermines the agency of the
millions of people who participated in the movement that brought down Hosni
Mubarak”
“platitudes do not help us understand the dual character of the Internet: It
empowers and disempowers”
“we propose a shift away from perspectives that isolate “the Internet” from other
media by examining the shift in media architecture exposed by the powerful synergy
between social media and satellite broadcasters during the January 25 uprising”
“we call for an understanding of the dialectical relationship between online and
offline political action. We argue that without one, the other cannot have meaning.
To a large extent, Internet spaces and tools were the choice of young revolutionaries
in Egypt because they were already the spaces and tools that people of their
generation had chosen for communication in daily life”.
‘The Egyptian Experience: Sense and Nonsense of the Internet
Revolution’, International Journal of Communication 5 (2011)