Tag Archives: grant

Podcasting the archive: an evaluation of audience engagement with a narrative non-fiction podcast series’ published

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With thanks as ever to Hazel for the words and so much else…

Podcasting the archive: an evaluation of audience engagement with a narrative non-fiction podcast series is now available in issue 2 of volume 28 of Archives, published last month. I am a co-author of the article alongside Professor Hazel Hall, Marianne Wilson, and Dr Iain McGregor.

In this work we compare audience engagement with a Second World War archive presented digitally in two formats as: (1) images and text in a Blipfoto journal, and (2) sound in an eight-episode podcast series (which starts with episode 1 here). The main findings reveal differences in levels of engagement for each presentation in respect of entertainment value, learning opportunities, and emotional response. Flexibility of access and authenticity of the archived material were also found to be important to audience engagement, with the nature of contextual information provided alongside the core archive key to the latter. Here we further understanding of facets of audience engagement with digitised archives while opening up new thinking on means of encouraging the general public to interact in more meaningful ways with historical records.

This article is the main output of the Platform to platform (P2P) and Heritage organisations and podcasts: scoping study (HOPSS) projects I led in 2022. The archive in question centres on the outputs of Lorna Beatrice Lloyd (1914-1942), principally her Diary of the war.

For those who do not have subscription access to Archives, the accepted version of the manuscript can be freely downloaded from the article’s record in the Edinburgh Napier University repository.

Research Impact and Value in LIS: introducing the RIVAL network

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Copied from Hazel Hall’s blog

This afternoon I’m speaking at the Edge conference in Edinburgh about a new project, as summarised in the slide below.

RIVAL launch posterWe started work on Research Impact and Value and LIS (RIVAL) on 1st February 2019. The Royal Society of Edinburgh has awarded us a grant to create a collaborative network of Scotland-based library and information science (LIS) researchers and library and information professionals interested in maximising the value of LIS research. This work builds on the pilot RIVAL event that we hosted at Edinburgh Napier University on 11th July last year.

We’re using the funding to organise four one-day network events between July 2019 and July 2020.  A proportion of this will be used to cover expenses of network members to participate at the events: travel for all members as required; travel and accommodation for those travelling long distances, e.g. from the Highlands and Islands. An extensive online presence for RIVAL will allow others to benefit from the project.

The main goal of the project is to develop and strengthen relationships between LIS researchers within Scottish universities, and between these LIS researchers and practitioners in Scotland. We hope that in doing so the practitioner participants will increase their confidence and self-efficacy as research users and partners.

The project team members Hazel Hall and Bruce Ryan are based within the Centre for Social Informatics at Edinburgh Napier University, and supported by a Project Board that includes Ines Byrne of the National Library of Scotland, Martina McChrystal of the University of Glasgow, Paul McCloskey of the City of Edinburgh Council, Emily Prince of Westerhailes Education Centre, and Andy Taylor of the University of Edinburgh.

The first RIVAL event takes place on Thursday 11th July 2019 in the Horizon Suite at Edinburgh Napier University’s Sighthill campus. Full details will be made available soon. In the meantime, if you wish to register your interest in the event, please email Bruce Ryan at b.ryan@napier.ac.uk.

To find out more about RIVAL, please check the project web site, follow the @LisRival Twitter feed, and/or join us on Facebook.

DREaM paper accepted

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In 2015, I enjoyed working with Professor Hazel Hall on an assessment of the lasting effects of the Developing Research Excellence and Methods (DREaM) project. Hazel’s posts about this project are here.

A paper written by Hazel, Peter Cruickshank and me, addressing the question of network sustainability within a community of library and information science (LIS) researchers and practitioner researchers has now been accepted for publication in the Journal of Documentation. Please read more about it in Hazel’s blog post, or, if you would like to learn more about the results of this study, please email Hazel at: h.hall@napier.ac.uk.