We caught up with Dr Fiannuala (Finn) Morgan to talk about her fascinating project, Historic Fires Near Me – an experimental visualisation of nineteenth century bushfire reporting which forms part of her ongoing research reconstructing Australian bushfire records from 1850 to 1900. The idea was sparked by the devastation of the Black Summer bushfires in 2019–20 and the troubling media narratives that downplay the growing severity of bushfires in Australia. Finn wanted to dig deeper into the historical record to see what the past could tell us.

As a librarian by trade with a passion for literature, Finn turned to Trove’s enormous archive of newspapers and journals. To extract and synthesise this data, she taught herself to code, using a mix of techniques – from simple searches to more advanced methods like Named Entity Recognition. The result is a browser-based tool that reveals where fires occurred and how often, across the colonies, over a fifty-year span.

In this conversation with SLV LAB’s Innovation Lead, Sotirios Alpanis, Finn shares what inspired her research and how anyone can learn to wrangle messy cultural data as she did. She also spoke about the distinct fire histories of different Australian colonies and the ways fire was used as a tool of colonisation in Victoria.

We caught up with Dr Fiannuala (Finn) Morgan to talk about her fascinating project, <a dir="ltr">Historic Fires Near Me</a> &ndash; an experimental visualisation of nineteenth century bushfire reporting&nbsp;which forms part of her&nbsp;<a dir="ltr">ongoing research</a>&nbsp;reconstructing Australian bushfire records from 1850 to 1900. The idea was sparked by the devastation of the <a dir="ltr">Black Summer bushfires</a> in 2019&ndash;20 and the troubling media narratives that downplay the growing severity of bushfires in Australia. Finn wanted to dig deeper into the historical record to see what the past could tell us.
As a librarian by trade with a passion for literature, Finn turned to Trove&rsquo;s enormous archive of newspapers and journals. To extract and synthesise this data, she taught herself to code, using a mix of techniques &ndash; from simple searches to more advanced methods like Named Entity Recognition. The result is a browser-based tool that reveals where fires occurred and how often, across the colonies, over a fifty-year span.
In this conversation with SLV LAB&rsquo;s Innovation Lead, Sotirios Alpanis, Finn shares what inspired her research and how anyone can learn to wrangle messy cultural data as she did. She also spoke about the distinct fire histories of different Australian colonies and the ways fire was used as a tool of colonisation in Victoria.

Explore emerging tech, digital experimentation and all things library-futures.

SLV LAB is State Library Victoria's prototyping and innovation lab. We experiment with technology to open access to collections, data and spaces. In our Conversations series, we discuss emerging technology, digital experimentation and library futures with artists, technologists and workers in the cultural sector.

Explore emerging tech, digital experimentation and all things library-futures.
SLV LAB is State Library Victoria's prototyping and innovation lab. We experiment with technology to open access to collections, data and spaces.&nbsp;In our Conversations series, we discuss emerging technology, digital experimentation and library futures with artists, technologists and workers in the cultural sector.

SLV LAB is State Library Victoria's prototyping and innovation lab. In our Conversations series, we discuss emerging technology, digital experimentation and library futures with artists, technologists and workers in the cultural sector.

SLV LAB Conversations

We caught up with Dr Fiannuala (Finn) Morgan to talk about her fascinating project, Historic Fires Near Me – an experimental visualisation of nineteenth century bushfire reporting which forms part of her ongoing research reconstructing Australian bushfire records from 1850 to 1900. The idea was sparked by the devastation of the Black Summer bushfires in 2019–20 and the troubling media narratives that downplay the growing severity of bushfires in Australia. Finn wanted to dig deeper into the historical record to see what the past could tell us.