Unstacked:documentation

The Unstacked web experience which previously lived here was a time-based visualisation of materials people are accessing from the State Library of NSW collection made by the first winners of the DX Lab's Digital Fellowship program, Elisa Lee and Adam Hinshaw.

With the closure of the DX Lab the live version is no longer hosted. A screen recording of the site is below, along with the text from the original About page.

The project went on to spawn several other versions for institutions such as The State Library of Queensland and UNSW. You can find out all about them here.

You can read more about the original project, its creation and even what happens when you build it into a microfiche reader(!) at these links:

https://dxlab.sl.nsw.gov.au/blog/dx-lab-fellows-diary/
https://dxlab.sl.nsw.gov.au/blog/dx-lab-fellows-diary-2/
https://dxlab.sl.nsw.gov.au/blog/unstackedlaunch/
https://dxlab.sl.nsw.gov.au/blog/unstacked-microfiche-experience/

ORIGINAL ABOUT TEXT

What occurs when human interaction with the collection is visualised in real-time and made accessible? How can this information be experienced so it adds value to the library and its visitors? What behaviours and insights can be deduced and what effect will it have on viewers? Will they be inspired, surprised, educated? These questions framed the research and exploration of this project.

Unstacked is a time-based visualisation of materials people are accessing from the State Library's collection.

It is the collection curated by the people accessing it at any time, revealing the richness and diversity it holds and the broad interests of those using it. Unstacked aims to inspire conversation and further exploration of the collection.

Items from the collection appear as they are accessed. So, as you see an item appear, it means someone just looked at it. If no items appear, no one is looking at anything at the moment. Select an item to show more detail and link back to its catalogue record.

The library organises its collection into two catalogues, Manuscripts & Pictures and Published. Items in Unstacked are represented by a preview image or a colour if no image is available.

Manuscripts & Pictures
000 Generalities
100 Philosophy and Psychology
200 Religion
300 Social Sciences
400 Languages
500 Science
600 Technology (Applied Sciences)
700 Arts and Recreation
800 Literature
900 Geography and History
Unknown

Dewey Decimal colour palette designed by Chris Gaul for the UTS Library

The visualisation is currently powered by four months of cached data and will be updated to a real-time feed in the future.

Created through the inaugural DX Lab Fellowship 2016. The DX Lab Fellowship is supported through a gift to the State Library of NSW Foundation − a not-for-profit organisation which supports key Library fellowships, and innovative exhibitions and landmark acquisitions.

Read about our process here.