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

这项工作将历史和设计学者与纺织行业和博物馆专家聚集在一起，开发和测试捕捉和传播C19世纪初在诺丁汉开发的Lever工艺的特定方面的方法，以复制手工蕾丝的质量。该项目的目的是开发和测试可靠和有效的方法来获取三种形式的知识：在文件记录中、在剩余的机器中和在幸存的手工艺者的默示知识中。进一步的目的是开发和测试表示存在于事物和人的化合物中的这种知识的方法，使一系列用户能够访问它，包括博物馆馆长、技术历史学家、纺织品设计从业者，可能还包括未来的制造商。这些方法将通过重点研究英格兰唯一剩余的生产Leivers花边的企业--德比郡伊尔凯斯顿的Cluny Lace--中存在的资源来开发和测试。该项目将通过获取Lever制造技术的技术规范和Cluny Lace剩余工匠的默契知识来记录什么是迫在眉睫的冗余技术。这些设备将通过查阅历史计划、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组“了解复杂结构”)以及新的合作者进行接触，进行记录。研究进程侧重于离职进程的具体方面，它将通过这一进程制定一个程序，该程序可在今后的工作中推广到该进程的其他方面。在关于这个过程的三个知识来源中，剩下的工匠是最脆弱的，因为文档和机器都是经久不衰的。因此，这一过程将从Cluny Lace的其余手工艺者开始，使用访谈和观察来确定过程的特定方面，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中。对手工艺者默契知识的探索将借鉴社会科学的方法，这些方法将超越直接采访，使用视频观察和分析，可以捕捉本体感觉/动觉知识。这部分工作将借鉴舞蹈和体育分析的先例。这项工作的后续阶段将遵循这项工作提供的线索，让人们使用3D计算机动画来表示和分析与之相关的机械的各个方面。这两个阶段的工作都将由在专利记录中追溯机械、生产技术和纺织品设计方面的相关创新的工作以及在国家档案馆举行的贸易局外观设计注册计划来支持和提供信息。该项目之后的工作将能够从另一个方向重申这一过程-从文件开始，转移到机器，然后是人。鉴于中国和印度经济的快速发展，重新评估英国纺织业的材料历史是及时的，这可能意味着纺织品生产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.