Using computer vision tools for historical newspaper analysis: SIAMESE and Europeana Newspapers Europeana

Melvin Wevers, a researcher in the Digital Humanities Group of the KNAW Humanities Cluster, created --a tool that analyses adverts in historical newspapers-- together with Juliette Lonij, as a Researcher-in-Residence at the Royal Library of the Netherlands. Clemens Neudecker, a researcher at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz, is working on making Europeana Newspapers --a huge set of historical newspapers-- available through Europeana Collections. Here, they tell us more about how their areas of expertise come together.... Tell us about SIAMESE - the tool you've developed to analyse images in newspapers. Melvin: SIAMESE uses machine-learning techniques (like Convolutional Neural Networks and Approximate Nearest Neighbour algorithms) to detect shapes and objects, and search for similar images. For instance, it can recognise visual elements representing a car in an advert, and come up with similar car ads.