Ian's main research interest is in the field of Digital Heritage across the archive, library and museum sectors. He is interested in particular in examining the relationship between users, creators and information systems in the cultural heritage sector. He is concerned with how user evaluation can inform the development of information systems, the influence of organisational culture and communities of practice on the development and use of information systems in practice, digital content creation, and innovative ways of representing information online. Ian also has research interests in historical information science and the economic, social and creative impact of Web 2.0 technologies.

Current Projects

• opencollections
• Cymru1914

Ian is working with partners in Glasgow Museums, National Library of Scotland and The Hunterian to develop the opencollections.org.uk web site as a cross collection search platform as part of the Kelvin Hall Redevelopment project.

He is working with Prof Lorna Hughes and the National Library of Wales on an evaluation of the JISC funded Cymru1914 site.

Ian is currently 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.

Previous Projects

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 HATII'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 (HATII).

Completed research includes being CI (with Prof. Alison Yarrington, History of Art, as PI and Matt Barr, HATII, 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 provided input to HATII's contribution 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 has examined historians' information seeking behaviour and the development of online archival services. He has proposed a model for the development of online archives and has recently completed an AHRC Speculative Research Grant conducting experimental research on the multidimensional visualisation of online finding aids.

As part of the AX-SNet group of researchers this work is contributing to the international development and promotion of user focused archival research.

• CREATe
• DEDICATE
• Mobilising Mapping
• 3D-COFORM - Tools and Expertise for 3D Collection Formation
• DL.org - Coordination Action on Digital Library Interoperability, Best Practices, and Modelling Foundations
• Multidimensional Visualisation of Archival Finding Aids
• Primarily History

List by: Type | Date

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

• Wachi Klungthanaboon is researching the perception of stakeholders on institutional repositories in National Research Universities in Thailand.
• Rosemary Spooner (joint with Dr Sabine Wieber, History of Art) is examining the material culture of the British Empire in relation to the visual and material language that constructed notions of the other.

Previous students under Ian's supervision have researched digital art in the context of digital libraries, ontological and critical hermeneutics and the phenomenology of memory, decision making processes in the retention and deletion of electronic records and online access to material culture.

• Atuma, Kenneth
  Record keeping and accountability in the Nigerian public sector: user perspective
• Matthews, Miriam
  Digital Doctrines in Glasgow Museums: Digital interactive technologies and their influence on the relationships, networks and practices of Glasgow Museums, 1989-2019
• Walter, Erin
  Reimagining Performance Art Histories: A Curatorial Approach to the Documentation and Archiving of Performance

Ian is Senior Lecturer and Director of Museum Studies. He is also Convenor of HATII's Honours degree in Digital Media and Information Studies. He teaches a range of courses and undergraduate and postgraduate level.

• Introduction to Museology
• Museum Issues
• Research and Professional Skills
• Museum Studies Dissertation
• Exhibition Placement
• Enterprise, Creativity and Citizenship Online
• Undergraduate Dissertation

For many years he also taught courses on Multimedia Analysis and Design, 2D Digitisation and Document Encoding and continues to contribute occasional lectures to these courses.

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 is currently HATII's representative on the School of Humanities Research Committee and sits on the College of Arts Library Committee. He has previously been Quality Assurance and Enhancement Officer for the School of Humanities and has served three sessions as an elected member of Senate.

Ian is 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.