Ben Lee
@bcgl.bsky.social
Assistant Professor @ the University of Washington iSchool | formerly an Innovator in Residence @ Library of Congress | essays in WIRED, Gawker, The New Republic, Current Affairs, etc.
🌐 www.bcglee.com
🌐 www.bcglee.com
Pinned
Ben Lee
@bcgl.bsky.social
· 8d
www.govscape.net
1/ Announcing GovScape – a public search system for 10 million U.S. government PDFs (70 million pages)! GovScape offers visual search, semantic text search, and keyword search. Explore below:
Website: www.govscape.net
ArXiv link: arxiv.org/abs/2511.11010
Website: www.govscape.net
ArXiv link: arxiv.org/abs/2511.11010
Reposted by Ben Lee
New Research Tool: GovScape (US Gov PDFs)
govscape.net ||| Research Paper (preprint) About #GovScape arxiv.org/abs/2511.11010 #govdocs @eotarchive.org
govscape.net ||| Research Paper (preprint) About #GovScape arxiv.org/abs/2511.11010 #govdocs @eotarchive.org
November 19, 2025 at 2:20 PM
New Research Tool: GovScape (US Gov PDFs)
govscape.net ||| Research Paper (preprint) About #GovScape arxiv.org/abs/2511.11010 #govdocs @eotarchive.org
govscape.net ||| Research Paper (preprint) About #GovScape arxiv.org/abs/2511.11010 #govdocs @eotarchive.org
Reposted by Ben Lee
Anyone interested in govt transparency and public access should check out GovScape from @bcgl.bsky.social and his team👇
It's an incredibly powerful tool that allows visual, semantic text, and keywords search of 10 million U.S. government PDFs (70 million pages!) and counting: www.govscape.net
It's an incredibly powerful tool that allows visual, semantic text, and keywords search of 10 million U.S. government PDFs (70 million pages!) and counting: www.govscape.net
November 19, 2025 at 6:24 PM
Anyone interested in govt transparency and public access should check out GovScape from @bcgl.bsky.social and his team👇
It's an incredibly powerful tool that allows visual, semantic text, and keywords search of 10 million U.S. government PDFs (70 million pages!) and counting: www.govscape.net
It's an incredibly powerful tool that allows visual, semantic text, and keywords search of 10 million U.S. government PDFs (70 million pages!) and counting: www.govscape.net
Reposted by Ben Lee
We’re live! Search 10 million+ U.S. government PDFs (70 million pages)! GovScape offers visual search, semantic text search, and keyword search. Explore below:
Website: govscape.net
ArXiv link: arxiv.org/abs/2511.11010
Website: govscape.net
ArXiv link: arxiv.org/abs/2511.11010
November 18, 2025 at 9:16 PM
We’re live! Search 10 million+ U.S. government PDFs (70 million pages)! GovScape offers visual search, semantic text search, and keyword search. Explore below:
Website: govscape.net
ArXiv link: arxiv.org/abs/2511.11010
Website: govscape.net
ArXiv link: arxiv.org/abs/2511.11010
Reposted by Ben Lee
Huge step forward in enabling access and use of content archived from government websites!
1/ Announcing GovScape – a public search system for 10 million U.S. government PDFs (70 million pages)! GovScape offers visual search, semantic text search, and keyword search. Explore below:
Website: www.govscape.net
ArXiv link: arxiv.org/abs/2511.11010
Website: www.govscape.net
ArXiv link: arxiv.org/abs/2511.11010
www.govscape.net
November 18, 2025 at 8:27 PM
Huge step forward in enabling access and use of content archived from government websites!
1/ Announcing GovScape – a public search system for 10 million U.S. government PDFs (70 million pages)! GovScape offers visual search, semantic text search, and keyword search. Explore below:
Website: www.govscape.net
ArXiv link: arxiv.org/abs/2511.11010
Website: www.govscape.net
ArXiv link: arxiv.org/abs/2511.11010
www.govscape.net
November 18, 2025 at 8:19 PM
1/ Announcing GovScape – a public search system for 10 million U.S. government PDFs (70 million pages)! GovScape offers visual search, semantic text search, and keyword search. Explore below:
Website: www.govscape.net
ArXiv link: arxiv.org/abs/2511.11010
Website: www.govscape.net
ArXiv link: arxiv.org/abs/2511.11010
Reposted by Ben Lee
Assistant Professor Ben Lee @bcgl.bsky.social's essay on the topic of AI and Holocaust Memory, “Uncanny Testimony,” was published by @longreads.com: longreads.com/2025/09/25/a...
Uncanny Testimony - Longreads
As the last Holocaust survivors approach the end of their lives, an AI scholar grapples with technology that promises to freeze them in time.
longreads.com
October 16, 2025 at 10:49 PM
Assistant Professor Ben Lee @bcgl.bsky.social's essay on the topic of AI and Holocaust Memory, “Uncanny Testimony,” was published by @longreads.com: longreads.com/2025/09/25/a...
Reposted by Ben Lee
“For all its futuristic appeal, I felt myself turning to the past. I yearned to speak with my grandmother about her life.”
A scholar at the intersection of AI and Holocaust memory wrestles with technology that speaks with the dead.
By @bcgl.bsky.social: longreads.com/2025/09/25/a...
A scholar at the intersection of AI and Holocaust memory wrestles with technology that speaks with the dead.
By @bcgl.bsky.social: longreads.com/2025/09/25/a...
Uncanny Testimony - Longreads
As the last Holocaust survivors approach the end of their lives, an AI scholar grapples with technology that promises to freeze them in time.
longreads.com
September 26, 2025 at 7:16 PM
“For all its futuristic appeal, I felt myself turning to the past. I yearned to speak with my grandmother about her life.”
A scholar at the intersection of AI and Holocaust memory wrestles with technology that speaks with the dead.
By @bcgl.bsky.social: longreads.com/2025/09/25/a...
A scholar at the intersection of AI and Holocaust memory wrestles with technology that speaks with the dead.
By @bcgl.bsky.social: longreads.com/2025/09/25/a...
Reposted by Ben Lee
For @longreads.com, I wrote a personal essay about AI Holocaust testimony, my grandmother, memory, and memory loss
longreads.com/2025/09/25/a...
longreads.com/2025/09/25/a...
Uncanny Testimony - Longreads
As the last Holocaust survivors approach the end of their lives, an AI scholar grapples with technology that promises to freeze them in time.
longreads.com
September 25, 2025 at 5:11 PM
For @longreads.com, I wrote a personal essay about AI Holocaust testimony, my grandmother, memory, and memory loss
longreads.com/2025/09/25/a...
longreads.com/2025/09/25/a...
Reposted by Ben Lee
Appreciated this thoughtful piece from @bcgl.bsky.social. Eloquently puts into words some of concerns about a particular use of AI that I've been grappling with.
“But what if, instead of resisting the deaths of the last survivors, we allow ourselves to accept their mortality?”
The grandson of an Auschwitz-Birkenau survivor grapples with the use of AI to reanimate the dead.
A new essay on @longreads.com, by @bcgl.bsky.social: longreads.com/2025/09/25/a...
The grandson of an Auschwitz-Birkenau survivor grapples with the use of AI to reanimate the dead.
A new essay on @longreads.com, by @bcgl.bsky.social: longreads.com/2025/09/25/a...
September 27, 2025 at 1:38 AM
Appreciated this thoughtful piece from @bcgl.bsky.social. Eloquently puts into words some of concerns about a particular use of AI that I've been grappling with.
Reposted by Ben Lee
“But what if, instead of resisting the deaths of the last survivors, we allow ourselves to accept their mortality?”
The grandson of an Auschwitz-Birkenau survivor grapples with the use of AI to reanimate the dead.
A new essay on @longreads.com, by @bcgl.bsky.social: longreads.com/2025/09/25/a...
The grandson of an Auschwitz-Birkenau survivor grapples with the use of AI to reanimate the dead.
A new essay on @longreads.com, by @bcgl.bsky.social: longreads.com/2025/09/25/a...
September 25, 2025 at 3:24 PM
“But what if, instead of resisting the deaths of the last survivors, we allow ourselves to accept their mortality?”
The grandson of an Auschwitz-Birkenau survivor grapples with the use of AI to reanimate the dead.
A new essay on @longreads.com, by @bcgl.bsky.social: longreads.com/2025/09/25/a...
The grandson of an Auschwitz-Birkenau survivor grapples with the use of AI to reanimate the dead.
A new essay on @longreads.com, by @bcgl.bsky.social: longreads.com/2025/09/25/a...
For @longreads.com, I wrote a personal essay about AI Holocaust testimony, my grandmother, memory, and memory loss
longreads.com/2025/09/25/a...
longreads.com/2025/09/25/a...
Uncanny Testimony - Longreads
As the last Holocaust survivors approach the end of their lives, an AI scholar grapples with technology that promises to freeze them in time.
longreads.com
September 25, 2025 at 5:11 PM
For @longreads.com, I wrote a personal essay about AI Holocaust testimony, my grandmother, memory, and memory loss
longreads.com/2025/09/25/a...
longreads.com/2025/09/25/a...
Reposted by Ben Lee
My lab is running a study to investigate how serendipity relates to information seeking in digital collections. We're looking for researchers & practitioners who have used, designed, or stewarded digital collections to participate in our survey (<10 min): forms.gle/zGJDZZ14vx2M...
Survey on Serendipity and Information Seeking in Digital Collections
Purpose of the Study
We are seeking to understand the different methods of information seeking in digital collections. In addition, we would like to understand what the participants' perceptions of se...
forms.gle
September 12, 2025 at 7:14 PM
My lab is running a study to investigate how serendipity relates to information seeking in digital collections. We're looking for researchers & practitioners who have used, designed, or stewarded digital collections to participate in our survey (<10 min): forms.gle/zGJDZZ14vx2M...
My lab is running a study to investigate how serendipity relates to information seeking in digital collections. We're looking for researchers & practitioners who have used, designed, or stewarded digital collections to participate in our survey (<10 min): forms.gle/zGJDZZ14vx2M...
Survey on Serendipity and Information Seeking in Digital Collections
Purpose of the Study
We are seeking to understand the different methods of information seeking in digital collections. In addition, we would like to understand what the participants' perceptions of se...
forms.gle
September 12, 2025 at 7:14 PM
My lab is running a study to investigate how serendipity relates to information seeking in digital collections. We're looking for researchers & practitioners who have used, designed, or stewarded digital collections to participate in our survey (<10 min): forms.gle/zGJDZZ14vx2M...
Reposted by Ben Lee
Pls help spread the word: We are hiring! 🌲☕✨
@ischool.uw.edu is recruiting two tenure-track assistant profs in AI. Areas include human-AI collaboration, AI & society, comp social science, NLP, and AI applications.
Apply by Nov 15, 2025: apply.interfolio.com/171020
Happy to answer questions!
@ischool.uw.edu is recruiting two tenure-track assistant profs in AI. Areas include human-AI collaboration, AI & society, comp social science, NLP, and AI applications.
Apply by Nov 15, 2025: apply.interfolio.com/171020
Happy to answer questions!
Apply - Interfolio
{{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
apply.interfolio.com
September 10, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Pls help spread the word: We are hiring! 🌲☕✨
@ischool.uw.edu is recruiting two tenure-track assistant profs in AI. Areas include human-AI collaboration, AI & society, comp social science, NLP, and AI applications.
Apply by Nov 15, 2025: apply.interfolio.com/171020
Happy to answer questions!
@ischool.uw.edu is recruiting two tenure-track assistant profs in AI. Areas include human-AI collaboration, AI & society, comp social science, NLP, and AI applications.
Apply by Nov 15, 2025: apply.interfolio.com/171020
Happy to answer questions!
Reposted by Ben Lee
CFP - AI for DH: Research Problems and Critical Approaches.
DHQ seeks 500-word abstracts for a special issue on AI (research problems, critical approaches, responsible applications, case studies, etc.).
Deadline: Sept 15, 2025.
More details: dhq.digitalhumanities.org/news/news.html
DHQ seeks 500-word abstracts for a special issue on AI (research problems, critical approaches, responsible applications, case studies, etc.).
Deadline: Sept 15, 2025.
More details: dhq.digitalhumanities.org/news/news.html
DHQ: Digital Humanities Quarterly: News
dhq.digitalhumanities.org
August 1, 2025 at 9:56 PM
CFP - AI for DH: Research Problems and Critical Approaches.
DHQ seeks 500-word abstracts for a special issue on AI (research problems, critical approaches, responsible applications, case studies, etc.).
Deadline: Sept 15, 2025.
More details: dhq.digitalhumanities.org/news/news.html
DHQ seeks 500-word abstracts for a special issue on AI (research problems, critical approaches, responsible applications, case studies, etc.).
Deadline: Sept 15, 2025.
More details: dhq.digitalhumanities.org/news/news.html
Excited to be co-editing a special issue of @dhquarterly.bsky.social on Artificial Intelligence for Digital Humanities: Research problems and critical approaches
dhq.digitalhumanities.org/news/news.html
We're inviting abstracts now - please feel free to reach out with any questions!
dhq.digitalhumanities.org/news/news.html
We're inviting abstracts now - please feel free to reach out with any questions!
DHQ: Digital Humanities Quarterly: News
dhq.digitalhumanities.org
September 9, 2025 at 8:28 PM
Excited to be co-editing a special issue of @dhquarterly.bsky.social on Artificial Intelligence for Digital Humanities: Research problems and critical approaches
dhq.digitalhumanities.org/news/news.html
We're inviting abstracts now - please feel free to reach out with any questions!
dhq.digitalhumanities.org/news/news.html
We're inviting abstracts now - please feel free to reach out with any questions!
With @yh-huang.bsky.social, I'm excited to share our Digital Collections Explorer, an open-source, multimodal viewer for digital collections! Users can search with both natural language inputs and reverse image search.
Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2507.00961
Public demo: digital-collections-explorer.com
Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2507.00961
Public demo: digital-collections-explorer.com
Digital Collections Explorer: An Open-Source, Multimodal Viewer for Searching Digital Collections
We present Digital Collections Explorer, a web-based, open-source exploratory search platform that leverages CLIP (Contrastive Language-Image Pre-training) for enhanced visual discovery of digital col...
arxiv.org
July 2, 2025 at 8:56 PM
With @yh-huang.bsky.social, I'm excited to share our Digital Collections Explorer, an open-source, multimodal viewer for digital collections! Users can search with both natural language inputs and reverse image search.
Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2507.00961
Public demo: digital-collections-explorer.com
Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2507.00961
Public demo: digital-collections-explorer.com
Very excited to have this article in Internet Histories with @tjowens.bsky.social and Jonah Estess! In the article, we study Colin Powell’s PowerPoint presentation to the UN Security Council and trace the PowerPoint through web archives
🆕 New OA article in Internet Histories:
“Powell.pps: Close & Distant Reading of Primary Sources in Web Archives” with @bcgl.bsky.social & Jonah Estess.
Exploring traces of Powell’s UN PPT connecting web archives, platform studies, & digital history.
Read it here www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
“Powell.pps: Close & Distant Reading of Primary Sources in Web Archives” with @bcgl.bsky.social & Jonah Estess.
Exploring traces of Powell’s UN PPT connecting web archives, platform studies, & digital history.
Read it here www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Powell.pps: close & distant reading of primary sources in web archives
Colin Powell’s 2003 PowerPoint presentation to the U.N. Security Council on Iraq’s nuclear capabilities has been analyzed from multiple perspectives as a key moment in early twenty first century hi...
www.tandfonline.com
June 15, 2025 at 8:24 PM
Very excited to have this article in Internet Histories with @tjowens.bsky.social and Jonah Estess! In the article, we study Colin Powell’s PowerPoint presentation to the UN Security Council and trace the PowerPoint through web archives
Today, I’ll be sharing about the public symposium, “AI and the Future of Holocaust Research and Memory,” hosted at @ischool.uw.edu on Udub’s campus in Seattle. Wonderful to be here with such incredible colleagues across the world and across disciplines.
May 20, 2025 at 5:01 PM
Today, I’ll be sharing about the public symposium, “AI and the Future of Holocaust Research and Memory,” hosted at @ischool.uw.edu on Udub’s campus in Seattle. Wonderful to be here with such incredible colleagues across the world and across disciplines.
Reposted by Ben Lee
"AI-in-the-loop": truly grateful to be part of this workshop "AI and the Future of Holocaust Research and Memory" - at the @ischool.uw.edu, org. by @bcgl.bsky.social, @toddpresner.bsky.social, UCLA, and Robert Ehrenreich, @ushmm.bsky.social. ischool.uw.edu/events/2025/...
AI and the Future of Holocaust Research & Memory: A Public Symposium
Please mark your calendars for Tuesday, May 20, 9 a.m.-5 p.m., for a public symposium on AI and the Future of Holocaust Research & Memory, to be held i...
ischool.uw.edu
May 19, 2025 at 9:56 PM
"AI-in-the-loop": truly grateful to be part of this workshop "AI and the Future of Holocaust Research and Memory" - at the @ischool.uw.edu, org. by @bcgl.bsky.social, @toddpresner.bsky.social, UCLA, and Robert Ehrenreich, @ushmm.bsky.social. ischool.uw.edu/events/2025/...
Reposted by Ben Lee
On Thursday @ 12.30pm I'm joining the Australian Society of Archivists online to discuss 'Authors and Archives'. Sign up if you'd like to hear me on Miles Franklin's interwar archival activism, and Ben Lee and Andrew Dean on JM Coetzee's 1960s foray into AI www.archivists.org.au/events/event...
Authors and Archives: Miles Franklin's Activism and J. M. Coetzee's AI
www.archivists.org.au
May 19, 2025 at 3:01 AM
On Thursday @ 12.30pm I'm joining the Australian Society of Archivists online to discuss 'Authors and Archives'. Sign up if you'd like to hear me on Miles Franklin's interwar archival activism, and Ben Lee and Andrew Dean on JM Coetzee's 1960s foray into AI www.archivists.org.au/events/event...
Reposted by Ben Lee
I wrote a little bit about the Library of Congress - a place I care about deeply - given today's news:
bcgl.substack.com/p/the-disman...
bcgl.substack.com/p/the-disman...
The Dismantling of the Library of Congress is an Assault on Knowledge Itself
Some thoughts on the day...
bcgl.substack.com
May 12, 2025 at 10:07 PM
I wrote a little bit about the Library of Congress - a place I care about deeply - given today's news:
bcgl.substack.com/p/the-disman...
bcgl.substack.com/p/the-disman...
I wrote a little bit about the Library of Congress - a place I care about deeply - given today's news:
bcgl.substack.com/p/the-disman...
bcgl.substack.com/p/the-disman...
The Dismantling of the Library of Congress is an Assault on Knowledge Itself
Some thoughts on the day...
bcgl.substack.com
May 12, 2025 at 10:07 PM
I wrote a little bit about the Library of Congress - a place I care about deeply - given today's news:
bcgl.substack.com/p/the-disman...
bcgl.substack.com/p/the-disman...
Reposted by Ben Lee
Finally documented the Beyond Words dataset from the @librarycongress.bsky.social labs / @bcgl.bsky.social for the BigLAM @hf.co org!
- 3.5K annotated historical newspaper pages
- Bounding boxes + category labels
- Photos, ads, headlines, cartoons & more
- 3.5K annotated historical newspaper pages
- Bounding boxes + category labels
- Photos, ads, headlines, cartoons & more
May 8, 2025 at 8:41 AM
Finally documented the Beyond Words dataset from the @librarycongress.bsky.social labs / @bcgl.bsky.social for the BigLAM @hf.co org!
- 3.5K annotated historical newspaper pages
- Bounding boxes + category labels
- Photos, ads, headlines, cartoons & more
- 3.5K annotated historical newspaper pages
- Bounding boxes + category labels
- Photos, ads, headlines, cartoons & more
Very excited to be organizing this public symposium at Udub with Robert Ehrenreich at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and @toddpresner.bsky.social at UCLA, and we'd love to have you join in-person in Seattle on 5/20!
How will AI shape Holocaust research and memory?
Join us on May 20, 10a.m. to 5 p.m. PT, at the UW for a full-day symposium featuring a series of panel discussions plus a roundtable w/ UW scholars. Breakfast & lunch provided.
🔗 Register: bit.ly/4iTylfD
Join us on May 20, 10a.m. to 5 p.m. PT, at the UW for a full-day symposium featuring a series of panel discussions plus a roundtable w/ UW scholars. Breakfast & lunch provided.
🔗 Register: bit.ly/4iTylfD
May 5, 2025 at 5:30 PM
Very excited to be organizing this public symposium at Udub with Robert Ehrenreich at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and @toddpresner.bsky.social at UCLA, and we'd love to have you join in-person in Seattle on 5/20!