Nottingham lace: capturing and representing knowledge in people, machines and documents.

这项工作汇集了历史和设计方面的学者、纺织工业和博物馆专家，共同开发和测试捕捉和传播19世纪初在诺丁汉开发的莱弗斯工艺的具体方面的方法，以复制手工蕾丝的品质。该项目的目的是开发和测试稳健和有效的方法来获取三种形式的知识：在文献记录中，在剩余的机器中，在幸存的工匠的隐性知识中。进一步的意图是开发和测试代表这种知识的方法，这些知识存在于物和人的化合物中，使其能够被一系列用户访问，包括博物馆馆长，技术历史学家，纺织品设计从业者以及潜在的未来制造商。这些方法的开发和测试将集中在英国唯一剩下的生产莱弗斯蕾丝的企业，德比郡伊尔克斯顿的克吕尼蕾丝。该项目将通过捕获Leavers制造技术的技术规范和Cluny Lace剩余工匠的隐性知识来记录迫在眉睫的冗余技术。通过访问历史规划、档案、当代摄影和专利，通过与现有合作伙伴（来自以前的科学与遗产研究集群“理解复杂结构”）以及新合作者的联系，对设备进行记录。研究过程侧重于离开过程的具体方面，通过它将开发一个程序，可以在未来的工作中扩展到过程的其他方面。在关于这个过程的三个知识来源中，剩下的手工艺人是最脆弱的，因为文件和机器都能保存下来。因此，该过程将从Cluny Lace的剩余工艺人员开始，通过访谈和观察来确定该过程的具体方面，这些方面可以通过机器的设计追溯到专利和设计注册记录。对手工艺者隐性知识的探索将借鉴社会科学的方法，这些方法超越了直接采访，使用视频观察和分析来捕捉本体感觉/动觉知识。这部分工作将借鉴舞蹈和体育分析的先例。工作的后续阶段将遵循这项工作提供的线索，与人代表和分析机械相关的方面，使用3D电脑动画。这两个阶段的工作都将以在专利记录中追踪机械、生产技术和纺织品设计方面的相关创新以及在国家档案馆举行的贸易设计注册委员会计划的工作为基础和依据。这个项目之后的工作将能够在另一个方向上重复这个过程——从文件开始，转移到机器，然后到人。鉴于中国和印度经济的快速发展，对英国纺织业的材料历史进行重新评估是及时的，这可能意味着纺织品生产将在未来几年回到英国。

This work brings together academics in History and Design with textile industry and museum specialists to develop and test methods of capturing and disseminating specific aspects of the Leavers process developed in Nottingham in the early C19 to replicate the qualities of handmade lace. The intention of the project is to develop and test robust and valid methods to capture three forms of knowledge: in the documentary record, in the remaining machinery and in the tacit knowledge of the surviving craftspeople. The further intention is to develop and test methods of representing this knowledge that exists in compounds of things and people, which make it accessible to a range of users, including museum curators, historians of technology, textile design practitioners and, potentially, future manufacturers. The methods will be developed and tested by focusing on the resource that exists in the sole remaining business in England producing Leavers lace, Cluny Lace at Ilkeston, Derbyshire. The project will document what is an imminently redundant technology by capturing both the aspects of the technical specifications of the Leavers manufacturing technology and the tacit knowledge of the remaining craftspeople at Cluny Lace. The equipment will be documented through access to historical plans, archive and contemporary photography and patents, through contact with existing partners (from the previous Science & Heritage Research Cluster 'Understanding Complex Structures') as well as new collaborators. The research process focuses on specific aspects of the Leavers process, through which it will develop a procedure that can be extended in future work to other aspects of the process. Of the three sources of knowledge about the process, it is the remaining craftspeople that is the most fragile because both documents and machines endure. The process will therefore start with the remaining crafts people at Cluny Lace, using interview and observation to identify specific aspects of the process that can be tracked back through the design of the machines into patent and design registration records.The exploration of the craftspeople's tacit knowledge will draw on methods from social science that extend beyond direct interview to use video observation and analysis that can capture proprioceptive/ kinaesthetic knowledge. This part of the work will draw on precedents in the analysis of dance and sport. The subsequent phases of the work will follow the leads provided by this work with people to represent and analyse the aspects of the machinery relevant to it, using 3D computer animation. Both these phases of the work will be underpinned and informed by work that traces the relevant innovations in machinery, production technique and textile design in patent records and the Board of Trade Design Registration scheme held at The National Archive. Work that follows this project will be able to reiterate this process in the other direction - starting with the documents, moving to the machines and then to the people.A re-assessment of the material history of the UK textile industry is timely in the light of the rapid development of the Chinese and Indian economies which may mean that textile production returns to the UK over coming years.