Hello everyone! I am Dr Valentina Vavassori, the new Digital Curator for Optical Character Recognition/Handwritten Text Recognition at the British Library.

I am part of the Heritage Made Digital Team, which is responsible for developing and overseeing the digitisation workflow at the Library. I am also an unofficial member of the Digital Research Team, where I promote the reuse and access to the Library’s collections.

My role has both an operational component (integrating and developing OCR and HTR in the digitisation workflow) and a research and engagement component (supporting OCR/HTR projects in the Library). I really enjoy these two sides of my role, as I have a background as a researcher and as a cultural heritage professional.

I joined the British Library from The National Archives, London, where I worked as a Digital Scholarship Researcher in the Digital Research Team. I worked on projects involving data visualisation, OCR/HTR, data modelling, and user experience.

Before that, I completed a PhD in Digital Humanities at King’s College London, focusing on chatbots and augmented reality in museums and their impact on users and museum narratives. Part of my thesis explored how to use these narratives using spatial humanities methods such as GIS. During my PhD, I also collaborated on various digital research projects with institutions like The National Gallery, London, and the Museum of London.

However, I originally trained as an art historian. I studied art history in Italy and worked for a few years in museums. During my job, I realised the potential of developing digital experiences for visitors and the significant impact digitisation can have on research and enjoyment in cultural heritage. I was so interested in the opportunities, that I co-founded a start-up which developed a heritage geolocation app for tourists.

Joining the Library has been an amazing opportunity. I am really looking forward to learning from my colleagues and exploring all the potential collaborations within and outside the Library.