This year’s iConference was hosted by my former colleagues at Edinburgh Napier University, with on-site sessions for 340 delegates taking place at the University’s Craiglockhart campus between 29th March and 2nd April 2026. I was delighted to join the event to catch up with old colleagues and external work friends, and to learn about new directions in information science research from the next generation of researchers. Continue reading
Today is the 80th anniversary of VE Day. On this date in 1945, the Second World War allies formally accepted Germany’s unconditional surrender of its armed forces.
Amongst the articles published in The Conversation this week to mark the 80th anniversary is ‘VE Day: how personal first-hand accounts help keep everyday narratives of wartime Britain alive’. This article highlights the value of audio to bring the words of ordinary people from the Second World War directly into the present. The content of the article draws on the analysis of audience engagement with Lorna Lloyd’s Diary of the war in two online formats: (1) text and images on Blipfoto posted from 1st September 2019; (2) an eight episode podcast series that starts with diary entries from early September 1939. The analysis was first presented in an article that I co-authored with Dr Bruce Ryan, Marianne Wilson and Dr Iain McGregor, published in Archives in December 2024. Continue reading
‘Podcasting the archive: an evaluation of audience engagement with a narrative non-fiction podcast series’ has been accepted for publication by Archives journal in October 2024. This contribution is the main output of the AHRC-Creative Informatics funded Platform to platform project. It is co-authored by Dr Bruce Ryan, Professor Hazel Hall, Marianne Wilson, and Dr Iain McGregor. Continue reading
Marina Milosheva’s draft PhD thesis
I have been a little quiet on this blog over the past five months or so. The main reason for this is that I have taken on a further role in addition to that of Emeritus Professor. I am now Continue reading
The diary of the war is available as a podcast series from https://rss.com/podcasts/lornalloyd/
The Platform to platform (P2P) project ran between February and July 2022. In that time the P2P team met its two main aims. The first was to produce a podcast series based on Lorna Lloyd’s Diary of the war. The second was to use this new audio version of archival content (originally made available as text and images as the LornaL Blipfoto journal between 2019 and 2021) to explore modes of audience engagement with different formats of digitised archive data sets. Continue reading
HOPSS project speaker Marianne Wilson
Over the past weekend, between 23rd and 25th June, Queen Margaret University hosted a conference entitled Shaking the archive: reconsidering the role of archives in contemporary society.
Yesterday, on the last morning of the conference, Marianne Wilson represented the whole Heritage organisations and podcasts scoping study (HOPSS) project team* when she delivered a presentation entitled The power of audio: presenting archives via podcasts. Continue reading
Professors Brian Detlor & Hazel Hall
Dr Brian Detlor, Visiting Professor to the Social Informatics Research Group at Edinburgh Napier University, has been in the Edinburgh for the past week. Last Friday I was pleased to participate in one of the events organised to mark Brian’s visit: a lightening talk showcase of some the excellent research undertaken by researchers in the Social Informatics Research Group.
My own presentation was about the AHRC/Creative Informatics funded Platform to Platform project that I completed last year with Dr Bruce Ryan (PI) and Dr Iain McGregor (Co-I). This work involved the creation of a podcast series based on Lorna Lloyd’s Diary of the war, and an assessment audience engagement with archives in two different digital formats – (1) a Blipfoto journal of text and images, and (2) sound in podcast episodes. The slides for my presentation are available on SlideShare. Continue reading
Lord Salisbury congratulates Bethany Ray on her performance as Lorna Lloyd in the Diary of the war podcast series.
Last Wednesday I was delighted to travel to Lambeth Palace to attend the 2022 Janette Harley Award ceremony, and to hear the 2023 Maurice Bond Memorial Lecture. Continue reading
Along with my colleagues Dr Bruce Ryan, Marianne Wilson, and Dr Iain McGregor, I am delighted that the submission that we made earlier this year to the Shaking the archive – reconsidering the role of archives in contemporary society conference has been accepted. Continue reading
The Edinburgh Napier University team that worked on the Platform to Platform (P2P) project to transform Lorna Lloyd’s Diary of the war into a podcast series is delighted to have learnt that this work has been highly commended as a runner-up for the British Records Association’s (BRA) 2022 Janette Harley Prize. This prize, awarded in memory of archivist Janette Harley (1951-2015), is intended to generate interest in archives, and raise awareness of research and achievements in the world of archives. Continue reading
Hazel Hall 