Serve yourself: A digital engagement framework for automatic text recognition and inclusive audience development

With digital scanners for heritage material becoming increasingly accessible, libraries require guidance to locally implement such technologies. Clear assessments as to technical affordances, potential disruptions and overheads are needed, especially if libraries are to harness such technologies for greater digital engagement. This paper focuses on scanners aligned to Automatic Text Recognition: the AI-enabled process of converting images-of-manuscripts into machine-readable text. In doing so, it fills a noticeable gap in documenting scanning processes as reproducible workflows. Action Research is used to ensure practitioner perspectives direct this assessment, conducted within the National Library of Scotland: combining drop-in sessions with staff interviews. ATR is found to be a creative and intentional way of ameliorating access issues to library collections, while requiring measures to limit disruption in reading rooms. By demonstrating ATR to be dependent on library space, specific pathways to user inclusion are charted: accounting for sociodemographic factors, AI awareness and digital skills.