Join the The AI4LAM AU & NZ chapter

Who We Are

The AI4LAM AU & NZ chapter is a network of technologists, tech enthusiasts and the tech curious from across the local libraries, archives, museums and related communities in Australia and New Zealand who are interested in how AI in all its various guises shapes our practice and our users’ expectations.

People who manage digital and digitised collections have joined the network, and they are interested in how AI technologies can add to, or improve efficiency in their own roles, and they might also be people who use heritage collections in new and unanticipated ways. The network members are interested in exploring how they make collections ready and suitable for new uses.

Initiated in mid 2020, the network has attracted more than 100 participants, with strongest responses from the university, library and archives communities. The network is a participatory community, supporting peer learning and collaborative approaches to common issues. The volunteer coordinating group brings together data, collections and engagement specialists, all of whom profess higher levels of interest than experience in the issues at hand.

What We Do

The network coordinates a series of well-attended webinars that showcase local practice in this area, and discuss big issues in relation to use of these technologies. Highlights of the webinar series include institutions like the National Archives of Australia, National Library of Australia and Auckland War Memorial Museum conducting limited scope applications to test the utility of AI-enabled approaches to auto-classification, indexing tools, image tagging and improving discoverability of collections. A webinar in July 2021 provided a focussed case study using AI text recognition and extraction tools to created structured data from digitised Stock Exchange records at the Australian National University Archives, while Victoria University Wellington demonstrated a generative art platform that for cultural heritage objects that enables random discovery through the use of search algorithms.

Several of these projects are also featured in an initiative to collect local projects to add to the global AI4LAM projects registry. Projects on this register include fabulous Australian projects such as the State Library of Queensland’s Mapping Future Brisbane and Flinders University’s AusStage:The Australian Live Performance Database.

What’s Next?

In a commitment to the participatory nature of the network, a small learning group has arisen. After an initial review of learning resources available to them, in July 2021 the group is attempting to document their experiences with a small coding project on a shared Miro Online Whiteboard as an exercise in collaborative auto-ethnography!

New membership and all inquiries are always welcome, the best way to connect with this network is to join the international mailing list at ai4lam.org, join the discussion online on the #aunz_chapter channel in the AI4LAM Slack workspace, and the recordings of past webinars are available online.

You don’t need to be an expert to join, it’s a great opportunity to learn and grow as a collective interest group.

Volunteer Coordinators

A big thank you to all involved so far.

• Ingrid Mason, The Australian National University

• Alexis Tindall, University of Adelaide Library

• Rowan Payne, National Library of New Zealand

• James Robertson, National Library of New Zealand

• Dr Jason Ensor, Western Sydney University Library

• Katherine Jarvie, RMIT University Library

• Noriaki Sato, Monash University Library

• Paula Bray, The Australian National Maritime Museum

• A/Prof Sydney Shep, Victoria University of Wellington

• Liz Stokes, Australian Research Data Commons

• Adam Moriarty, Auckland War Memorial Museum