Ian is a Senior Lecturer in Information Studies and Head of Subject. He first came to the University of Glasgow as an undergaduate in 1989 where he obtained an MA (SocSci) in Economic and Social History. He went on to abtain an MPhil in History and Computing and a PhD in Economic History, both from the University of Glasgow.

His first academic job was an Academic Support Officer for the TLTP History Courseware Consortium (http://bufvc.ac.uk/dvdfind/index.php/title/4612). During this time he started to teach on courses provided by what was then called HATII (Humanities Advanced Technology and Infomration Institute) before being appointed as Lecturer in New Technologies for the Humanities in 2000. He became Senior Lectuer in 2009 and Head of Subject in 2019.

Ian's main research interest is in examining the relationship between users, creators and information systems across the archive, library and museum sectors. In particular he is concerned with how user evaluation, organisational culture and professional practice inform the development and use of information systems. He is also interested in digital content creation, and innovative ways of representing information online. Ian also has a scholarly interest in history of information science, the economic, social and creative impact of Web 2.0 technologies and multimedia design and interaction.

Projects

Most recently Ian has worked with Prof Lorna Hughes and the National Library of Wales on an evaluation of the JISC funded Cymru1914 site (web site now offline).

Ian has worked with partners in Glasgow Museums, National Library of Scotland and The Hunterian on the Kelvin Hall Redevlopment Project (kelvinhall.org.uk/) including the development of the opencollections.org.uk system as a cross collection search platform.

Ian was PI (with Prof. Ronan Deazley and Prof. Martin Kretschmer, School of Law) on the Copyright and Risk: Scoping the Wellcome Digital Library Project. This is part of CREATe, the RCUK Centre for Copyright and New Business Models in the Creative Economy. The project considers the implications of adopting a risk-based approach to copyright compliance within a large-scale multi-partner digitisation project such as the Wellcome Digital Library, with a view to informing archival practice within a national and international context.

With Dr Ruggero Lancia (former AHRC Research Fellow in HATII) he worked on the problems posed by curating built environment data in architectural practices, civil engineers and public authorities in the DEDICTE project.

Ian was a CI for the subject's work on the EU FP7 funded 3D-COFORM project. 3D-COFORM will focus on digitisation of cultural heritage artefacts and deliver new tools in the areas of 3D-capture, 3D-processing, the semantics of shape, material properties etc., resulting in richer and more realistic representations, better documentation and increased cost effectiveness of the digitisation process. As part of this project an evaluation of the 3D COFORM ingestion tool and repository infrastructure was undertaken, working with Dr Ruggero Lancia.

Ian was CI (with Prof. Alison Yarrington as PI and Matt Barr as Systems Developer) in an AHRC funded project to develop a mobile phone optimised interface to the Mapping the Practice of Sculpture in Britian and Ireland database.

Ian also contributed to the DL.org project. DL.org created a framework where representatives from digital library initiatives and projects collaborate, share experiences and expertise. The project will work towards increased awareness and understanding of interoperability of digital libraries systems and towards a consolidated version of the DELOS Digital Library Reference Model.

His research has included collaboration with Prof. Helen Tibbo of the School of Information and Library Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on their pioneering Primarily History project. This examined historians' information seeking behaviour and the development of online archival services.

Ian has proposed an innovative model for structuring and visualising online archives through an AHRC Speculative Research Grant that conducted experimental research on the multidimensional visualisation of online finding aids.

He was a founding member of the AX-SNet group of researchers who worked on the international development and promotion of user focused archival research.

List by: Type | Date

Ian is interested in supervising students who have a research interest in the relationship between users and digital information and informatin systems in the cultural heritage sector and with online information more generally. He currently co-supervises the following PhD students:

• Kenneth Atuma, Record keeping and accountability in the Nigerian public sector.
• Yi Ting Lin, Towards a Socially Sustainable Digital Cultural Heritage: A Case Study on Public Museums in Taiwan
• Miriam Matthews, A Critical Framework for Interactives: Examining the application of digital technology through cultural policy and Glasgow Life in museums and heritage
• Erin Walter, Reimagining Performance Art Histories: Documentation and Archiving of Performance

• Atuma, Kenneth
  Record keeping and accountability in the Nigerian public sector: user perspective
• Lin, Yi Ting
  Reassessing Licensing Mechanisms to Build a Participatory Digital Archive for Preserving Traditional Taiwanese Drama in a National Museum

Previous students under Ian's supervision have included the following.

• Adele REDHEAD (2021) Archival memory, authenticity, and community. A comparative study of the archive and Eucharist

• Amy CURRIE (2021) Format, materiality and value: an examination of DIY music cassette tapes in archives

• Christopher LOUGHNANE (2020) Body, environment, technics: An ethological approach to information

• Maribel HIDALGO URBANEJA (2020) Towards a definition of digital narratives in art museums

• Rosemary SPOONER (2016) Close encounters: international exhibitions and the material culture of the British Empire, c.1880-1940

• Wachiraporn KLUNGTHANABOON (2015) Stakeholder Participation in Metadata Management of University-based Institutional Repositories in Thailand

• David MACKNET (2012) Decisions to delete: subjectivity in information deletion and retention

• Leonidas KONSTANTELOS (2009) Digital art in digital libraries: a study of user-oriented information retrieval

Ian is teaches a range of courses at undergraduate and postgraduate level. He currently teaches:

• Enterprise, Creativity and Citizenship Online
• Document Encoding

He has previously taught:

• 2D Digitisation
• Introduction to Museology
• Multimedia Analysis and Design
• Museum Issues
• Digital Cultural Heritage
• Research and Professional Skills
• Museum Studies Dissertation
• Exhibition Placement
• Undergraduate Dissertation

Ian is a guest lecturer on the Certificate/Master of Advanced Studies in Archival and Information Science offered by the University of Berne and has taught on the Stages Technique Internationaux d'Archives run by the Archives de France.

Ian has been Convenor of the Association for History and Computing UK and was a member of the Executive Council of the American Association for History and Computing from 2005 to 2008. He is on the Editorial Board of Program: Electronic Library and Information Systems, was a member of the AHDS History Advisory Committee and has undertaken consultancy work for The National Archives, Edinburgh University Archive and ProQuest's History Online. He regularly reviews proposals for the ALLC/DRH/DH conference and has reviewed papers for Archivaria and Archival Science and is a member of the College of Reviewers for the Canada Research Chairs Program. In conjunction with AHDS History the AHC-UK secured funding from the AHRC ICT Methods Network for a two day workshop on Text Mining for Historians that introduced historians to the methods and tools developed and currently employed by corpus linguists. He was Co-Chair of the ECDL 2010 Doctoral Consortium.

Conference Papers and Presentations

'From ZigZag to BigBag: Seeing the Wood and the Trees in Online Archival Finding Aids', Workshop on New Forms of Xanalogical Storage and Function, ACM Hypertext 2009, Turin, Italy. *

'The Potential and Pitfalls of User Evaluation', Society of Archivists Data Standards Group, British Library, 2009. *

'Historians Information Seeking Behaviour', Humanities Beyond Digitisation, Institute of Historical Research, London, 2005.*

'UK Archives Online: Supply and Demand', AIM 25, 2005.*

'Historians Information Seeking Behaviour', The National Archives, Kew 2003.*

'Discovering Good Practice: Metadata and the NINCH Guide', Open Archives Forum, 3rd Workshop, Berlin, 2003.*

'Historians and the Search for Primary Sources', UKOLN Collection Level Description Forum, Cambridge, 2003.*

"Information Seeking Behaviours in the Digital Age: Historians in the United Kingdom." American Historical Association, Chicago, IL, 2003.

'Information Seeking Behaviour in the Digital Age: UK Historians and the Search for Primary Sources.' DRH, Edinburgh, 2002.

"Teaching, Learning, and Digitising: Resources in the Humanities through the Co-operation of Educators and Archivists", DRH, Edinburgh, 2002. (with Osborne, John M and Gerencser, James W. Dickinson College, Pennsylvania).

'Primarily History: Historians and the Search for Primary Source Materials: The U.K. Scene', American Association for History and Computing, Nashville, TN, 2002.

'The Pedagogical Development and Application of CAL in the UK: The History Courseware Consortium Experience', American Association for History and Computing, Annual Conference, Texas, 2000.

'Towards a framework for web-based teaching? Evidence from the UK and USA', American Historical Association 2000 Conference, Chicago. 'Embedding CAL: The History Courseware Consortium Experience', History 2000 Conference, Bath.

* indicates invited presentation

Conference Organisation

• 2004, in association with the Royal Historical Society's Gerald Aylmer Seminar and the National Archives examined digital histories. A report by Vanessa Carr on this conference can be found in Ariadne and selected papers, edited by Ian Anderson and Lucy Tedd, have recently been published in a special issue of Program.
• 2005, in association with the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) at the University of Cambridge examined interdisciplinary computer methods.
• The 2006 conference looked at strategies for meeting the challenge of the digital deluge and was held in association with AHDS History.
• The 2007 conference, once again with the support of The National Archives, examined the challenges of developing ICT skills for history students.