Gethin Rees
Before joining King's College London Gethin worked at the British Library for seven years where his role included helping to manage the non-print legal deposit of digital maps and coordinating the Georeferencer crowd-sourcing project. He is interested in helping research projects to get the most out of geospatial data and tools and has twenty years of experience in using these technologies across cultural heritage, academic research and industry.
His primary research interest is in the relationship between visualisation and cartography. Web maps offer opportunities to engage with the breadth of the British Library’s collections, from born-digital Geographical Information Systems (GIS) data to catalogue records. Examples include the recent Peripleo interface that could be used to present your collection, and the legal deposit maps viewer, available in the maps reading room.
As co-chair of the Pelagios network and co-coordinator of the network’s Visualisation activity he has helped a community build connections through adopting common geographical tools and methods. As PrincipaI Investigator of the Towards a National Collection foundational project, Locating a National Collection, he developed a method of dissolving barriers between the collections of historical environment organisations and GLAMs. Locating a National Collection adopted a user-centred approach to software design based on audience research like focus groups. Before taking up his current role he worked in a digital humanities role on two collaborative history projects funded by the ERC, Beyond Boundaries and Mapping the Jewish Communities of the Byzantine Empire, and as a software developer. His PhD on South Asian archaeology (University of Cambridge) made use of GIS for spatial analysis and data management.
Supervisors: Professor N.R.M. de Lange
His primary research interest is in the relationship between visualisation and cartography. Web maps offer opportunities to engage with the breadth of the British Library’s collections, from born-digital Geographical Information Systems (GIS) data to catalogue records. Examples include the recent Peripleo interface that could be used to present your collection, and the legal deposit maps viewer, available in the maps reading room.
As co-chair of the Pelagios network and co-coordinator of the network’s Visualisation activity he has helped a community build connections through adopting common geographical tools and methods. As PrincipaI Investigator of the Towards a National Collection foundational project, Locating a National Collection, he developed a method of dissolving barriers between the collections of historical environment organisations and GLAMs. Locating a National Collection adopted a user-centred approach to software design based on audience research like focus groups. Before taking up his current role he worked in a digital humanities role on two collaborative history projects funded by the ERC, Beyond Boundaries and Mapping the Jewish Communities of the Byzantine Empire, and as a software developer. His PhD on South Asian archaeology (University of Cambridge) made use of GIS for spatial analysis and data management.
Supervisors: Professor N.R.M. de Lange
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Papers by Gethin Rees
Identity is a critical influence on the public’s engagement with cultural heritage. This article emphasises the role of geographical scale in this relationship examining how the presentation of local heritage can foster meaningful engagement with collections. The geographical information embedded in digital collections – such as where objects were made or the locations they depict and describe – can help varied audiences to discover digital heritage records that are significant to them. Yet the interactive web maps used by cultural heritage organisations have not presented the breadth of collections effectively. Audience research conducted by the Locating a National Collection project offered insights into how the presentation of local heritage using web maps can broaden engagement. A survey explored the values, motivations and identities of the UK public in relation to geography and web technologies. ‘Pretotypes’ or sketches of interfaces prompted focus groups to offer insights into interface design and the suitability of collections. The public were not only interested in heritage connected to the area where they reside but also a range of familiar locations drawn from memory, genealogy and community, termed their ‘own places’. Only particular collections offer geographical information of suitable quality and distribution to support engagement with familiar locations at a local scale. This user-centred approach can help organisations to design web maps that help audiences discover the parts of collections they find meaningful. The article offers the first step in a pathway to achieving social impact such as community building through digital collections.
Locating a National Collection helps cultural heritage organisations to use geographical information — such as where objects were made and used or the locations they depict and describe — to connect collections and engage the public. Through workshops, audience research and software development the project has developed a set of recommendations for using location to enhance the discovery of digital records across diverse collections. A set of thematic and technological case studies have connected site records from historic environment organisations with objects from galleries, libraries, archives and museums virtually. The Pelagios Network of researchers, scientists and curators has developed a methodology that uses geographical information to connect research data with considerable success. LaNC built on their methodology by exploring methods of accessible and meaningful presentation to the public in collaboration with the National Trust and Historic Royal Palaces. The engagement work package encompassed survey and focus groups to understand the attitudes, behaviour and motivations of audiences such as community groups, heritage visitors and schools towards cultural heritage and location-based technologies. Our infrastructure work package created two web apps: a curation tool, Locolligo, and a web-map interface that can be embedded in organisational websites, Peripleo. LaNC encourages cultural heritage organisations to take up a common approach to creating and presenting geographical information with the ultimate aim of spear-heading a movement beyond text-based searches in cultural heritage.
Identity is a critical influence on the public’s engagement with cultural heritage. This article emphasises the role of geographical scale in this relationship examining how the presentation of local heritage can foster meaningful engagement with collections. The geographical information embedded in digital collections – such as where objects were made or the locations they depict and describe – can help varied audiences to discover digital heritage records that are significant to them. Yet the interactive web maps used by cultural heritage organisations have not presented the breadth of collections effectively. Audience research conducted by the Locating a National Collection project offered insights into how the presentation of local heritage using web maps can broaden engagement. A survey explored the values, motivations and identities of the UK public in relation to geography and web technologies. ‘Pretotypes’ or sketches of interfaces prompted focus groups to offer insights into interface design and the suitability of collections. The public were not only interested in heritage connected to the area where they reside but also a range of familiar locations drawn from memory, genealogy and community, termed their ‘own places’. Only particular collections offer geographical information of suitable quality and distribution to support engagement with familiar locations at a local scale. This user-centred approach can help organisations to design web maps that help audiences discover the parts of collections they find meaningful. The article offers the first step in a pathway to achieving social impact such as community building through digital collections.
Locating a National Collection helps cultural heritage organisations to use geographical information — such as where objects were made and used or the locations they depict and describe — to connect collections and engage the public. Through workshops, audience research and software development the project has developed a set of recommendations for using location to enhance the discovery of digital records across diverse collections. A set of thematic and technological case studies have connected site records from historic environment organisations with objects from galleries, libraries, archives and museums virtually. The Pelagios Network of researchers, scientists and curators has developed a methodology that uses geographical information to connect research data with considerable success. LaNC built on their methodology by exploring methods of accessible and meaningful presentation to the public in collaboration with the National Trust and Historic Royal Palaces. The engagement work package encompassed survey and focus groups to understand the attitudes, behaviour and motivations of audiences such as community groups, heritage visitors and schools towards cultural heritage and location-based technologies. Our infrastructure work package created two web apps: a curation tool, Locolligo, and a web-map interface that can be embedded in organisational websites, Peripleo. LaNC encourages cultural heritage organisations to take up a common approach to creating and presenting geographical information with the ultimate aim of spear-heading a movement beyond text-based searches in cultural heritage.
Secondly, the presentation will attempt to assess the intensity of movement along the different routes. This will be carried out using three types of data. First, the relative cost of moving from the plateau to the port sites will be evaluated. Second, the settlement pattern on the eastern side of the Ghats will be examined in order to determine the areas from which trade may have originated. Third, the position and elaboration of the various rock cut cave sites will be assessed. A link between patronage at these sites and the people who travelled through the Ghats will be established and the elaboration of rock-cut monasteries used to provide some indication of the intensity of movement along the different routes. The presentation will close bu discussing the implications this study has for studying the impact of Indian Ocean trade on South Asia.
https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Buddhist_Rock_cut_Monasteries_of_the_Wes/KSSVtQEACAAJ?hl=en
Donations made by members of the laity supported the cutting of caves and the day-to-day needs of communities that inhabited these monasteries. The wider economy was therefore an important influence. Previous studies have prioritised the influence of trade on the distribution of rock-cut monasteries on the basis of limited archaeological evidence. This thesis examines this relationship and interaction with other aspects of the Early Historic economy. Comprehensive documentation of the distribution of monastic architecture through extensive fieldwork forms the basis of interpretation. A discussion of settlement archaeology and topography provides evidence of the economic context of individual monasteries. Finally, the process of donation and other forms of interaction with wider society are evaluated on the basis of literary and epigraphic evidence.
The thesis suggests that donations made to monastic communities that lived in the Western Ghats and on the Konkan Coast were an important influence on the distribution of rock-cut architecture. Variation in monastic architecture is linked to differences in economic context through a study of the landscape that surrounded monasteries. Diversity in monastic architecture and in the economic contexts in which architecture is found is indicative of the adaptability of Buddhism and, more specifically, the process of donation. Assessment of the economic context in which rock-cut monasteries functioned can help to develop an understanding of processes of religious interaction throughout South Asia.