Alex Pinfold

Alex Pinfold is a Collection Information Assistant currently working on digitising Birmingham Museums Trust’s accession registers as part of the Dynamic Collections project.

Prior to joining Birmingham Museums Trust, he worked in commercial archaeology first as an excavator and then archives assistant. His research interests have focused primarily on decolonisation and Cold War protest heritage, in particular the history of Black British anti-racist activist groups such as the British Black Panthers.

Alex Pinfold is speaking at the Digital Collections Summit 2024 :

Documentation Detectives: Digitising Museum Records Through Zooniverse Crowdsourcing

Given the scale and complexity of documentation that can be found in museums of all sizes, it is no wonder that the idea of digitising them through crowdsourcing can hold immense appeal. Birmingham Museum Trusts were no exception. As part of our Dynamic Collections initiative, in 2024 we launched Documentation Detectives, a Zooniverse-based project aiming to transcribe our accession registers. But what went into building such a project? What were the challenges and benefits? Join BMT as we discuss this journey and its lessons for other museums wanting to embark on similar projects.