Dr Athanasios Velios
Title
Reader
College
University of the Arts London
Email address
Tags
Researcher Research
Biography
I am Reader in Documentation working as part of Research at Camberwell, Chelsea and Wimbledon and Ligatus. I completed my PhD in the RCA/V&A Conservation (run in association with Imperial College). My PhD work was on Computer Applications to Conservation and more specifically Conservation Documentation.I work with Linked Data technologies, ontologies, knowledge organisation systems to model records from memory institutions. I am a member of the CIDOC-CRM special interest group working on improving the standard and extending it for the field of conservation.
My research focuses on documenting practice with particular interest in conservation and archiving. I am looking into different ways of recording and documenting objects. I work closely with Professor Nicholas Pickwoad on the documentation of binding structures. We have jointly developed a methodology for recording significant features of bindings which can assist in understanding the history of the book. I have developed an XML schema to formalise and validate these records. We led a consortium of partners who worked together to publish a thesaurus of bookbinding terms: the Language of Bindings Thesaurus.
I proposed an archiving methodology called "Creative Archiving" as a way to interpret artists' ideas through the organisation of their own papers. I have researched the work of the artist John Latham through analysis of his archive.
I have a strong interest in the Drupal content management system as a programming platform and a web-application delivery platform.
I am a keen supporter of open source software and open distribution of knowledge.
Grants and awards
(Figures indicate amount awarded to UAL)
- Arts and Humanities Research Council, Linked Conservation Data, £48,272.00, (2019-2020)
- Joint Information Systems Committee, Artivity 3, £11,688.00, (2016-2016)
- Joint Information Systems Committee, Artivity 2, £5,404.00, (2015-2015)
- Joint Information Systems Committee, CREAM 2, £8,957.00, (2015-2015)
- Joint Information Systems Committee, Artivity, £3,000.00, (2015-2015)
- Joint Information Systems Committee, CREAM, £1,000.00, (2015-2015)
- International Institute for Conservation of Historicand Artistic Works, Classification of conservation web content for the International Institute of Conservation, £22,841.49, (2011-2012)
- Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Reanimating John Latham through Archive as Event, £165,933.00, (2008-2010)
- PRS Foundation, Athanasios Velios PRS Foundation, £5,000.00
Research Outputs
Article
- Velios A, Martin A. Off-the-shelf CRM with Drupal: a case study of documenting decorated papers (2016)
- Velios A. Online event-based conservation documentation: A case study from the IIC website (2016)
- Bendix C, Velios A. Storing library collections: A workflow for packing and tracking items in the library of the St. Catherine Monastery, Sinai (2012)
- Velios A, Pickwoad N, Honey A. Manuscript boxing: a technique for objective spatial arrangement (2011)
- Velios A. Creative Archiving: A Case Study from the John Latham Archive (2011)
- Velios A. The John Latham Archive: an on-line implementation using Drupal (2011)
- Velios A. Η διατήρηση της ψηφιακής κληρονομιάς και ο ρόλος του συντηρητή [The Preservation of Digital Heritage and the Role of Conservator] (2007)
- Velios A, Harrison J. Digital reconstruction of fragmented archaeological objects (2007)
- Velios A, Pickwoad N. The Database of the St. Catherine's Library Conservation Project in Sinai, Egypt (2005)
- Velios A, Pickwoad N. Current use and future development of the database of the St. Catherine’s Library conservation project (2005)
- Velios A, Cummings A, Harrison J. Digital reconstruction of fragmented artefacts: improved methods for data capture (2003)
Book Section
- Velios A. Bookbinding descriptions in a linked data world: How the CIDOC-CRM can improve research in bookbinding history (2017)
- Martin A, Pickwoad N, Velios A. Fitting a quart into a pint pot at the Sir John Soane’s Museum in London: A new library management and conservation survey tool for historic libraries (2016)
- Velios A. Archive as Event: Creative Archiving for John Latham. (2013)
- Velios A, Pickwoad N. The digitisation of bookbindings (2012)
- Pickwoad N, Velios A. An optimised workflow for large-scale condition surveys of book collections (2009)
Conference, Symposium or Workshop item
- Velios A, Faubel S, Eberl M. Artivity: a tool to collect contextual research data for art practice (2017)
- Velios A, Pickwoad N. Versioning materiality: Documenting evidence of past binding structures (2016)
- Pickwoad N, Velios A. Language of Bindings Thesaurus (2016)
- Velios A, Faubel S, Eberl M. “Artivity”, a tool to document art and design creative practice (2016)
- Velios A. Beyond databases: Linked open data for bookbinding descriptions (2014)
- Velios A. Hierarchical recording of binding structures (2008)
- Pickwoad N, Velios A. The Conservation of the Library of the St. Catherine's Monastery in Sinai (2004)
Other
- Pickwoad N, Velios A, Boudalis G. Ligatus bookbinding glossary (2011)
Teaching
Current research students
- Jennifer Murray, Manuscript-Waste Fragments: Identifying the bindings from which they were removed (Joint supervisor)
- Stavroula Rapti, Chelating agents for removing iron corrosion products from dry composite objects (Lead supervisor)
- Ana Tam, Applying Graph Theory to Conservation Documentation (Lead supervisor)
Past research students
- Alberto Campagnolo, Transforming structured descriptions to visual representations : an automated visualization of historical bookbinding structures (Lead supervisor)
- Heather Ravenberg, A data model to describe book conservation treatment activity (Lead supervisor)
- Nikolaos Sarris, Classification of finishing tools in Greek bookbinding : establishing links from the Library of St Catherine's Monastery, Sinai, Egypt (Joint supervisor)
Subjects
Creative Computing
Curation and culture