A case study of Adlib Designer and the Adlib API, discussing how those tools were used by the BFI to support a geographic location project with map visualisation outcome.

1. Geographic Locations in CID:
a case study of Adlib Designer and
Adlib API
Stephen McConnachie
Head of Data, Collections & Information, BFI
Axiell ALM combined users group meeting
24th February 2015, Birmingham

2. Geographic Locations in CID
How the BFI used Adlib
tools…
Adlib Designer
Adlib for Windows
Adlib API
to deliver strategic priority
3 in its Film Forever plan:
Unlocking Film Heritage

3. Geographic Locations in CID
Unlocking Film Heritage is about:
• Digitisation – of moving image collections across UK:
• BFI National Archive
• Regional and National film archives
• Commercial rightsholders
• Access - via traditional and web models:
• Cinema
• Blu-ray / DVD
• but mainly online via BFI Player

4. Geographic Locations in CID
BFI Player
• a VoD (Video on Demand) platform
• will include most of the 10,000 works digitised via UFH

5. Geographic Locations in CID
Our ambition is to reach the whole of UK, not just BFI core demographic (London
and other major cities). How can that be achieved?

6. Geographic Locations in CID
Our ambition is to reach the whole of UK, not just BFI core demographic (London
and other major cities). How can that be achieved?

7. Geographic Locations in CID
Our ambition is to reach the whole of UK, not just BFI core demographic (London
and other major cities). How can that be achieved?

8. Geographic Locations in CID
Our ambition is to reach the whole of UK, not just BFI core demographic (London
and other major cities). How can that be achieved?

9. Geographic Locations in CID
Geographic Location…
The biggest successes in early phase of BFI Player were tram rides in Sheffield,
Halifax / factory gates in Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, etc
Lessons:

10. Geographic Locations in CID
Geographic Location…
The biggest successes in early phase of BFI Player were tram rides in Sheffield,
Halifax / factory gates in Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, etc
Lessons:
1. Users engage very strongly with archival content via sense of place

11. Geographic Locations in CID
Geographic Location…
The biggest successes in early phase of BFI Player were tram rides in Sheffield,
Halifax / factory gates in Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, etc
Lessons:
1. Users engage very strongly with archival content via sense of place
2. They share the content in local networks (social media etc)

12. Geographic Locations in CID
Geographic Location…
The biggest successes in early phase of BFI Player were tram rides in Sheffield,
Halifax / factory gates in Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, etc
Lessons:
1. Users engage very strongly with archival content via sense of place
2. They share the content in local networks (social media etc)
3. They find the content from local resources (local newspapers, websites, etc)

13. Geographic Locations in CID
Geographic Location…
The biggest successes in early phase of BFI Player were tram rides in Sheffield,
Halifax / factory gates in Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, etc
Lessons:
1. Users engage very strongly with archival content via sense of place
2. They share the content in local networks (social media etc)
3. They find the content from local resources (local newspapers, websites, etc)
Summary:

14. Geographic Locations in CID
Geographic Location…
The biggest successes in early phase of BFI Player were tram rides in Sheffield,
Halifax / factory gates in Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, etc
Lessons:
1. Users engage very strongly with archival content via sense of place
2. They share the content in local networks (social media etc)
3. They find the content from local resources (local newspapers, websites, etc)
Summary:
Geographic location is a key driver for discovery and engagement
So how can we capitalise on that?

15. Geographic Locations in CID
Britain on Film:

16. Geographic Locations in CID
Britain on Film:
1. Digitise films representing every geographical area in the UK, ideally one film
per parliamentary constituency

17. Geographic Locations in CID
Britain on Film:
1. Digitise films representing every geographical area in the UK, ideally one film
per parliamentary constituency
2. Catalogue the films with geographic location (latitude / longitude)

18. Geographic Locations in CID
Britain on Film:
1. Digitise films representing every geographical area in the UK, ideally one film
per parliamentary constituency
2. Catalogue the films with geographic location (latitude / longitude)
3. Offer a map visualisation interface on BFI Player, enabling users to navigate
to their town, village, county, and view the films

19. Geographic Locations in CID
Britain on Film:
1. Digitise films representing every geographical area in the UK, ideally one film
per parliamentary constituency
2. Catalogue the films with geographic location (latitude / longitude)
3. Offer a map visualisation interface on BFI Player, enabling users to navigate
to their town, village, county, and view the films
4. Engage users in adding location granularity: street, building, park, corner

20. Geographic Locations in CID
Britain on Film:
1. Digitise films representing every geographical area in the UK, ideally one film
per parliamentary constituency
2. Catalogue the films with geographic location (latitude / longitude)
3. Offer a map visualisation interface on BFI Player, enabling users to navigate
to their town, village, county, and view the films
4. Engage users in adding location granularity: street, building, park, corner
How can Adlib Designer and the Adlib API help?

21. Geographic Locations in CID
Britain on Film:
1. Digitise films representing every geographical area in the UK, ideally one film
per parliamentary constituency
2. Catalogue the films with geographic location (latitude / longitude)
3. Offer a map visualisation interface on BFI Player, enabling users to navigate
to their town, village, county, and view the films
4. Engage users in adding location granularity: street, building, park, corner
How can Adlib Designer and the Adlib API help?

22. Geographic Locations in CID
Britain on Film:
1. Digitise films representing every geographical area in the UK, ideally one film
per parliamentary constituency
2. Catalogue the films with geographic location (latitude / longitude)
3. Offer a map visualisation interface on BFI Player, enabling users to navigate
to their town, village, county, and view the films
4. Engage users in adding location granularity: street, building, park, corner
How can Adlib Designer and the Adlib API help?

23. Catalogue the films with Latitude and Longitude
1. Find UK geolocation data sources with an open license
a. Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 Gazetteer
250k place names, with OS gridref and X,Y coords.
Points on the map: cities, towns, villages, hills, water, etc
b. Office for National Statistics administrative geography
Regions, counties, authorities, London boroughs, Scottish councils
All areas in UK, based on OS Boundary Line products, but improved
Shapes on the map: counties, authorities, regions, etc

24. Catalogue the films with Latitude and Longitude
2. Use Adlib Designer to create fields and screens in Adlib Thesaurus
with disambiguation eg Aberdeen in Scotland, not Bradford

25. Catalogue the films with Latitude and Longitude
2. Use Adlib Designer to create fields and screens in Adlib Thesaurus
with disambiguation eg Aberdeen in Scotland, not Bradford

26. Catalogue the films with Latitude and Longitude
2. Use Adlib Designer to create fields and screens in Adlib Thesaurus
with disambiguation eg Aberdeen in Scotland, not Bradford

27. Catalogue the films with Latitude and Longitude
2. Use Adlib Designer to create fields and screens in Adlib Thesaurus
with disambiguation eg Aberdeen in Scotland, not Bradford

28. Catalogue the films with Latitude and Longitude
2. Use Adlib Designer to create fields and screens in Adlib Thesaurus
with disambiguation eg Aberdeen in Scotland, not Bradford

29. Geographic Locations in CID
3. Use Adlib Designer to:
• import data from OS and ONS datasets
• build a full UK hierarchy using parent / child join between places and areas

30. Geographic Locations in CID
4. Use Adlib Designer to:
• create cataloguing fields and screens in the film work record
• add a map visualisation of the catalogued locations

31. Geographic Locations in CID
5. Use the Adlib API (and XSLT For Dummies) to:
• generate KML output from the geolocated film work records

32. Geographic Locations in CID
6. Use the KML created by the Adlib API to create a map interface:
• place interactive pins on a map (CartoDB, Google Maps, Leaflet, etc)

33. Geographic Locations in CID

34. Geographic Locations in CID
6. Use the KML created by the Adlib API to create a map interface:
• place interactive pins on a map (CartoDB, Google Maps, Leaflet, etc)
• add toggles to filter by genre, decade, etc

35. Geographic Locations in CID

36. Geographic Locations in CID
6. Use the KML created by the Adlib API to create a map interface:
• place interactive pins on a map (CartoDB, Google Maps, Leaflet, etc)
• add toggles to filter by genre, decade, etc
• add a pop-up window for the location pins

37. Geographic Locations in CID

38. Geographic Locations in CID
6. Use the KML created by the Adlib API to create a map interface:
• place interactive pins on a map (CartoDB, Google Maps, Leaflet, etc)
• add toggles to filter by genre, decade, etc
• add a pop-up window for the location pins
• add hyperlink to Adlib Internet Server page (collections-search.bfi.org.uk/web)

39. Geographic Locations in CID

40. Geographic Locations in CID

41. Geographic Locations in CID
6. Use the KML created by the Adlib API to create a map interface:
• place interactive pins on a map (CartoDB, Google Maps, Leaflet, etc)
• add toggles to filter by genre, decade, etc
• add a pop-up window for the location pins
• add hyperlink to Adlib Internet Server page (collections-search.bfi.org.uk/web)
• add function to play video content (this uses the Adlib API too – getcontent command)

42. Geographic Locations in CID

43. Geographic Locations in CID

44. Geographic Locations in CID
Summary
1. Good data sources for geographic location, with open licences:
Ordnance Survey, Office for National Statistics
2. Adlib Designer for configuration of fields / screens, and data import
3. Adlib API for generating map data output eg KML, GeoJSON
4. Mapping infrastructure for visualising eg Google Maps, CartoDB
Next steps
1. BFI Player developers will use CID geographic locations data to create BFI
Player user experience with map interface
2. More digitising, more cataloguing (and some bulk georeferencing ideas)
3. London streets: I have a georeferenced London streets dataset, to be
imported to Adlib Thesaurus to enable street-level cataloguing for London
4. Crowd sourcing of more granular locations data
5. I have a full UK locations hierarchy in Adlib Thesaurus structure: I will share it
with the Adlib user community if community is interested in using it

45. Geographic Locations in CID
Stephen McConnachie,
Head of Data
Collections & Information, BFI
stephen.mcconnachie@bfi.org.uk