Late-Night Talk: Angelina Giovani Agha. Source: An App like Uber to Reach Archives Worldwide

Angelina Giovanni, welcome to PhD launch and it's a pleasure to have having a chat officially now on the podcast because we had one last week. So so how do you feel? How you feeling today? What I've been up to before before come joining in. Thank you for having me. It's very kind of you to invite me on the podcast. I know a few of my friends who already have PhDs. I could see they were already connected to you on LinkedIn. It's been good. It's been a good day. I'm based in London. There's been a lot of responding to researchers who are carrying out requests for our app stores and while at the same time about to submit one of our own research projects. So a lot of editing and writing and double checking things. So just, you know, normal Wednesday, really. Normal Wednesday. Normal Wednesday. And I think that's usually just the middle of the week and then all we get so much work to do. It feels like Monday and then goes to Tuesday again. Wednesday are going to be back to Monday and then. This I know. And then? I do love a Monday, it's my favorite day of the week. It's a great, it's AI think it's also a great day to start off the weekend and say, OK, I got this. I got full of energy after spending the weekends. The planning. Yes, it's essentially the planning. The weekends are sacred, so no work whatsoever. How have you been? How's your week been? Week's been fine been been applying for jobs. I'm also working on the podcast. Today was released a talk I had last week with a PhD candidate from Swansea University and he's rather from STEM. He's he was doing some studies on Alzheimer using zebrafish and. Oh, interesting. Study on brain lipids. So it was really interesting. It was a really interesting talk and for me as coming from arts and humanities background. Is that? He needs to be more specific. Yes, speaking to the real sciences. Real sciences, so to speak. Yeah, I know the feeling. Sometimes you think you're like, is everyone in their job? Sometimes you think you've done a really complicated thing. And then you speak to someone else and you can't even start grasping what they've been doing all day. And you're like, oh, OK, what I was doing is pretty basic. It's just lab. Lab for them is lab work and lab. Yeah. So we had set up the talk because you have a, an app, it has been really launched recently and you approach me and say, I've got this app called Source and just for the students and graduates around here. Oh, well, I just need to enter my my e-mail and my passwords is for the students and graduates out there. It's like basically this around here. I am correct it has the notification on there because I need to update my Stripe account, but I'll go there afterwards. So it's basically like this. Could you share with us and what source is and goes from there and also including how your backgrounds, sorry. If I yeah, so it's not source has been a long time in the making. If the conception time counts. I've had, I came up with the idea for source from about a decade ago when I was doing research. So by depth, by training, I'm a researcher. I started History of Art and Archaeology and I've been working as a provenance researcher for the past almost 14 years now. And I have a business partner with whom we run Phil and Giovanni art provenance research. So me and Tom, we do a lot of research for collectors, the art trade museums whenever they are primarily either the transaction in art going on or if the museums are going through an acquisition process and they're looking to buy certain pieces for their collections and we do the documentation of their ownership history. So which is what provenance research is. And it is a kind of job that you cannot really do from the desktop. You can start from the desktop you, you, you locate your sources and you figure out what your methodology is going to be, but you can't really do in nine out of 10 times, you cannot do an exhaustive research from your desktop. So you need to hit the archives, libraries, the various repositories, and like every PhD student would, will know that there's no such thing as writing. Not to imply that every research that we do is like APHD, which is absolutely not, but sometimes it takes months and months to complete. And that is because there's a discovery process. And then we need to physically be able to get to the archives and libraries around the world. And to be honest, that is more often than not not the case. Yes. And I would also the funding we also need funding and funding is. Limited. Absolutely. Sometimes. There is not is unavailable. It's, it's not even hard when you do it for yourself. It's also hard when you do it on behalf of a client because you need to justify expenses. And if you're going to another continent, it's it's really expensive, slight accommodation, other expenses. And then you need to familiarize yourself with the archives and libraries or the the material you're going to see, which might not even be in the language that you're familiar with. So mostly people who are everyday locally at the archives are going to be more productive and more efficient than the visiting person who is only there for a few days in, in retrieving information. So I kept thinking, why do I need to go, even though I'd love to go to, I don't know, to Argentina to get this bit of information when I'm certain there's someone already sitting there that has access to this material. So this was the fundamental behind source. It's like Uber, but for information. So you download the app, it's free to sign up and you enter a title or a reference of or the name of an archive that you are trying to access. And source would then match you with users who are on location and they can be a research assistant based on what you need. So if you were to have we're in London and if you were to have a research assistant in London, they could, they would have the same access I have. So I could just go. And you can't really hire a research assistant everywhere in the world full time. So it's basically to facilitate access to repository that are not digitized, they're not online, they remain printed. And you, you know, you hire a research assistant in the real life based on their credentials and on source. You just hire them based on the access that they have and you don't and. That's exactly what she said is a like an Uber for. Yeah. Researchers. I really hope Uber doesn't mind me name dropping them over 5. I don't think that that it's. Just a good, it's just such an after description. You know, in October, we had the presentation and we did like a pitch of the app to like a small group in like an art tech conference. And I didn't mention the word Uber. I had like 2 minutes to give a pitch and this girl came to me in the break and she goes so it's like Uber for information. And I'm like, yeah, there was the audience then. And no, I mean, it came from the audience. But also it is exactly the term I had been, I had been using before. So the fact that somebody was able to just get it and use that same reference, it just convinced me that that is the best reference to use. So we're sticking with it. You know, we don't really like put it in writing. That's like Uber for information. Because I'll say we don't want to be misleading, but it is like Uber for information. No, I think just it's just a great key buzzword because it's it's it's in great it's inherited across all of us. When you hear instead of saying I'm going to I'm going to well, we're going to say going to grab a taxi. It was since OK, I'm just going to put on the foot put on my app called the Uber. Yeah, and that's it. But then you say no, go for going to to source is bait is essentially like a a networking hub where you connect with other people, Yeah, who are in your in your specific field and the thing that you specifically need. So it's it's it's would be essential. I've been checking around here, just playing around and saying and from what we spoke last week, that you are borrowing knowledge, so to speak from a researcher and you requesting his services. Yeah. As if it was a freelancer. Yes, that is the principle. So basically you, you decide how long the job would take it to complete and you decide what your rate is. And you know, there's instances where somebody might need to verify a footnote and you just need to check the certain page for them and show them this is what it says on this page might or not, might not be what you're looking for. And it is all within fair use and copyright restrictions. So nothing is published. No one pays for content. We don't keep any copies of document exchange. They'll go directly from end user to end user because I'm a researcher and I know how it works. You know, we know that confidentiality is really important. And you know, academia in the same way I mean it, it, it's made to serve the community, not to create obstacles or, or issues. So people don't get paid for content. People get paid for their time. The same way that if you hire a research assistant in real life that, you know, they've been a student or somebody, you know, you don't say I'm going to pay you this much. If you bring me this much content, you'll say, OK, I'll pay you this much per hour. And this is a research task that you have to do. So yes, you hire someone. And then only this week, as part of my ongoing research, I have needed things from even in London locations I couldn't get to. And we're looking to get some information from New York, from colleagues there. And it has just been so much more efficient than just having to plan a trip to an archive and postpone your research by, by weeks or months. So it's, I am very excited. It's very self-serving. I, I build this because I needed it. And it's, it's a, it's a shared need. Everyone that I know that does research at one point or another has had the struggle of how do I access this information? I really need to go here. I really need to go there. I've emailed the archive and it's been two months and I haven't heard back. So they're like, they're very common obstacles. Yeah. And I think also with the the archive, this is so much bureaucracy. They have so much emails to to reply. They won't be able to reply to one, one single person to get to get that specific volume. And I think with with source, as you said, that comes into play into aiding researchers and students at the same time earning from that. I'd like, and I and I, we can go there from a bit a bit further, but I'd like to, to, to ask because to ask this question because you've said it, it, you had this implant since 2016, like 10 years ago, right? Even more. Yes, even. More I wonder if where the your inspiration from it came from besides of what you said before. Yeah, in a world where nowadays we have AI, we most of us rely to AI and fun. And as a fun fact, as you said, I was hearing a podcast weekend a podcast yesterday where you where you were a guest and you were trying description of. Oh, I see. We can. Yeah. We'll we'll go on that on the what the podcast name is, but. Yeah, already. Yes. I was wondering how you how would you would you describe this? If I, you know, there's the, the art world and the tech world loves throwing solutions to us. And you know, a few years ago it was like, oh, blockchain is going to revolutionize provenance research. And everyone in provenance research is like, no, it's not. And it didn't, you know, it makes 0 difference in my work or, or the outcomes. And it's the same for AI. And this is not just in provenance research, but it's across all the research disciplines. Yeah, you cannot trust a reference or that AI gives you. There's a lot of issues with it. First is a how much it hallucinates. I mean, it will give you a result and then if you keep poking at it and testing, it will say it will kind of change the story. But at the same time, even if it is fed with the digitized material that exists on the Internet, the digitized content that's come out of libraries and archives is less than 25% globally combined. And that is not equal equally distributed across the developed world that can afford to, you know, put money towards digitization initiatives. So there's part of the world that nothing is digitized in the archives. So you don't even know what's in there. So if you don't don't have access to a catalog for a collection or a group of you know, paper was or correspondence or whatever it is, how is it AI going to know what's in it? So there's it will give you any answer you want. If you ask it something, it will give you an answer. Doesn't mean you should use it. And we have had many cases in the past six months where we've looked at material references and you start looking into them properly for like 5 minutes, and you're like, this is not a real reference. It looks like it could be from a Berlin archive, but turns out it's not. And sometimes you can even prove this by taking an answer that ChatGPT has given you and putting it into clothes and then asking Grok to verify. And all three of them contradict each other. So it is not worth risking anyone's, you know, academic reputation for, for a shortcut that actually no one really needs. So when I sat down to the developers to discuss source and you know how it works, none of the content that's generated that the user gets is AI content because we don't ask them to summarize to write essays to you know, they need to provide hard evidence is a primary documentation. You went to the archive, you check this material from 1820. I don't want a synopsis. I want a picture or a scan or a photocopy of this material that you know will go. It's for for study purposes. Because if you were to need it for publication, for example, you cannot get those rights from source. You need to go back to the holding institution and get the licensing permits and you know, do everything properly. It's it's a referencing tool. So it will not imagine what it can do. There is a level on the back where we use some AI to identify repositories. So it basically like a like a Google check on steroids where you give it a title and it can say it's in this place, it's in that place, it's in this place based on online catalogues that are already there. But things that are not online. We are doing that manually. We are matching people manually. So in that case it will we would have to use our own networking skills and then to consult other people who have that restricted access to those specific sources that are not not they're. Not to the public. There's a few ways we are doing this. Like when you sign up, you'll see in the app where it says resources you can go and you can update your resources. So for example, wherever, if you're in Swansea, but you might move and you might go to Bath and you might go to London and you then update the the what you have access to. You'll say I'm in London, I have access to the National Archives at Q or the British Library or the National Art Library, so I can accept jobs from those locations. But at the same time, if you have a big collection at home that might be specialized, especially if you're doing a PhD, you have tend to have a niche of topics. You can scan the ISB NS of those books and you can become a searchable repository of that material. Again, just because you bought a book doesn't mean that you have to break the, the, the fair use and the copyright use. If you have a book that says, you know, no parts of it are produced at are reproducible at all, you can't do it. And if somebody just wants to know a reference, you might have to handwrite it if it's 2-3 sentences or transcribe it or find a way to not break the law. But so far, I mean, I have about, I don't know, 500 books at home. So I every, every time I go by the shelf, I scan 5 and every time I go past, I scan another 5. And it's, it's valuable because I have like I have auction catalogues and there's other people in the other users that have uploaded hundreds of auction catalogues that otherwise you'd have to go, I don't know, across four or five locations to check 3 for references. So it, it's, it's only been out for a month, but it's very, for me as someone who's not really a tech person and I've, you know, I, I don't come from the start up tech world. I come, I come from the depth of the archives. It's, you know, it's been, it's not been without challenges, but it's really rewarding to see that people can see the benefits and the use of what you've built. So yeah, it's been great. I think there's over 120 users as of today in over 100 locations. Today, I know today is April Fools, but is is it really accurate? Yes, yes, it is. I I can show you. Oh, I can show you. Wait, no. No, I was. Just I can go there. There's currently 123 users, even though now I have disclosed how back my, how bad my, how dirty my screen is. So no, it's very, it's great because it just goes to show and the way people use it has been really interesting. We have cases of people wanting very specific things, and we've had instances of people saying can you go into this archive and check this file to see if there's any mention of this person? So, you know, it's not, it's not just a cop in job is a lot of it is, you know, a proper compiling research information job. Then I think it's I think it's spot on because it's again, it's helping other people who don't have the access and then just they going doing that. And besides that, besides books, does it also work with any other any other sources such as a a scientific article? It can be anything. It can be, yes, it can be anything. It's important to point out that the that the goal of the app is to is to access physical material. So no one in the app is allowed, for example, to request something that is only on JSTOR. You cannot. You can't do anything that is electronically. Yes, because it already exists in electronic form and that is not the the the gap we're trying to fill. So you know, if Jstar is there, you can go get a day pass at J store or pay for the article and download it. You the the option is there. So you know, for someone at source who uses source, who uses their camera to take pictures of the archives and create files, you it's not the modus operandi you need. So it's not there to compete with serve digital services that already facilitate access to information is there to help you get access to offline things that you cannot access otherwise. And it goes to say, I mean, if an archive has digitized a material, there's no reason you should pay a researcher on source. You can just go on their website and and find it. So, but you can look for articles, you can look for magazines, journals from the past, newspapers. If they're not, again, you know, in the UK we have the British Newspaper Archive and it's an amazing resource. But a few, when I was mentioning it to a neighbor a few months ago, she's like, oh, she goes, I used to have this, you know, she said my mom used to have this Martha Stewart, I don't know, it's called like Home Living magazine or something. And she said it had like this amazing best recipe for a cake. And I'm like, she's like, if I give you the, the, the kind of the year, can you figure out that? Can you find that magazine? And I was like, this is the most random thing probably we can. But you know, because you start from an academic point of view and a research point of view. And then you realize that people are curious about all sorts of things. Whether it is like a a comic book that has gone out of circulation and you haven't seen in forever. Or whether it is a leaflet that the museum published for an exhibition many years ago. Or whether it is correspondence that, you know, somebody might have as part of a family collection that you cannot access. They can come into source and connect to this as institutional providers. So we are now in the process of partnering with small archives, small collectors who have material that people don't even know where it is and so they can make it searchable through source. So. They they, they, they opened up themselves and then said, let's work with you. Yes, yes, we've, we're doing our first institutional partner next week and they're a photographic archive, which are very important for the art market. And yeah, I mean, it's a tool I have used for the past five years at least in my research and it, it's very valuable to people doing my line of work. So I'm, I'm pretty sure a lot of people are going to be very excited that they're more accessible and. Myself included because I'm trying to play it around and again as I. Said I still. Need to update my. Stripe. The Stripe accounts, yes, And I just need to to work around it. I played it, played with it last week. OK. Just for me, for me, it's a bit difficult for now. Yeah, I think the more, the more you populate it, the more, the more matches you are going to get. If you're not getting direct matches, you can always go to the Explorer page and you can see all the jobs that have been posted that are open and. Then how in that case, both providers and requesters, they can they can be interchangeable so they can request, but at the same time they can they can provide. Absolutely. Then then how they how can they then use source and then to establish a rate per hour? How do they? How do they do that? So there's a few ways. When you go to your profile, it will say, say your rate per request. And this is the rate, fixed rate that you will charge people for access to your personal library. Sure. And then it's the same for if you say you are the VNA or National Arts Library somewhere and you're like, this is my rate per request. But on the other hand, because I am very much aware that a lot of the people on the other side of the jobs are going to be students, we didn't want to set our own rate for what you can charge or what you cannot charge or what you can offer. So we have left that when you post a job, you can set your own rate. You can set a range and you can say I'm willing to pay between 15 and 25 lbs to get this information and you post it out there. It will match with you if you have access to the resource. And you can decide in case it comes below your rate if you want to take it because maybe it doesn't take that long to complete, sure. Or you can, you don't have to because if you're not willing to do it, but in that way, you kind of let the market dictate its terms. You cannot make it completely prohibitive price wise to students who could, you know, there's an option or you can upload like the references of an article that you're reading to track them. And you can, if you upload the references source will generate them into jobs, into draft jobs. And when you're ready, you can publish them. And you can say, well, I you just want between 3 and 4 lbs per per request. And maybe a seasoned senior researcher might not pick it up, but the fellow students was at the library might pick it up. And, you know, is the equivalent of, you know, doing a part time job for a few hours. And you can do this basically without leaving the library. And you can just, you know, keep doing your thing and help me out as well and help you out as well. Yeah. It feels, it feels like a, an interesting side hustle and nowadays we're going to use that that. Terminology. And for the students, for the students themselves, OK, it would, it would be really interesting to know how students would get some access to those restricted resources. So say so say for example, I used to go on research trips to Oxford University. Some of the volumes that I had access didn't exist and on the Internet Archive because. Yeah, yeah. Right. If I knew about that, about source for if it was for quite a while, for quite a while, probably I would have done it and say, OK, I can, I can, I can try to do this. We'd need a specific a special request permission request, Yeah, from the the Sackler Library and and then they would if they would grant me, then I would need to to to scan, not just taking a simple picture or this is have to be all professional or students can have just take a a simple picture and then send it over to. It it can. First of all, it depends whatever is allowed. Yes. From the from the library, if it says no flash photography, it's no flash photography. We had somebody come complete a job yesterday in Vienna and they just scanned actually the book. No, it wasn't the whole book. It was the question was can you check the index, see if this name is mentioned and just show me what it says about that name. So it, it wasn't the whole book request, it was a few pages and they, it, it was just that as a rule, I'd say unless you know for sure something is outside of copyright, don't go scanning a whole book. It's very silly because you know, the the point of it is not to replace people buying books. I mean, I buy books on average 2, two to three times a week. OK. Because I, I mean, first of all, like, I love buying a book. Like I, I just cannot help myself. It's like my idea of going shopping, like, oh, hey, I'm going to read that. I mean, that sounds great. And I know a lot of people who are publishing books for our colleagues. I always buy those books, you know, so the goal is not to keep people from buying books. The goal is to make sure that the book you're buying in a way you actually need it. I remember as an art student, and I'm sure you know this, they are terribly expensive art books. I want them, but if I only need 2 sentences in the book, it might not be worth me spending €200 on it. So there's something to be said about, you know, the student economy and the fact that, you know, the cost of living is high and books are terribly expensive. And, you know, the number of students having part time jobs while they're studying is the highest it's ever been. And the number of students buying used books or sharing books is also the highest it's ever been. Like the number of students buying brand new textbooks. It's it's less than 20%. Yeah. So we did all this research, you know, before when we were doing the feasibility study for the app. So the, the goal is not to keep people from buying books. The goal is to keep people buying as many books as possible that they actually need. But if you're doing a PhD, as I'm sure you know, you are not going to buy every single book you come across. Yes, and you will never. You will won't be able to consult every single book as well. No. So if you so if during your research, what you can do is create them as draft jobs on, on source. You don't have to post them. And then, I don't know, once every two weeks you're like, OK, these are the references I'm going to follow. And those are the ones that you actually follow through source rather than checking like buying everything or even even on source. I mean, as a researcher, I know for a fact it's not a good idea to, to just go if you have 5 resources today, you need to check, go check them out today and then go back tomorrow. It makes sense to compile a list, a reference, and then once you have enough, you can have one or two field days, research days, and then you go out and you know, do your library day or your archive day. So it's a good study management tool and it's a good way for, you know, students to monetize their time in the library by being by helping someone who cannot get there. And receive some Commission in the process. Yeah. But I think that the obviously we we live in the world with money and everyone needs needs money, of course. Oh yeah, absolutely. And but to take to take that as a size, but at at the same time you are helping someone who may have also similar research interests. I'm speaking from AP the PhD context and students can help must help each other and seeking using source will be will be a valuable tool for anyone who wants to get into into this kind of into this type of field, whether you're a PhD, whether what, whether what you your current what your current job is. And we, we just, we are, we are winning on both sides. I I I believe so. I mean, I the, the even in this first month and it hasn't been a whole month yet. It will be by this the 16th, I think we went, we announced that we are live the way it has simplified certain research tasks. For me, it's been really great because if I know for a fact this is a material material I need, I don't have to spend the time wondering how to get there. I can just post it on source and then see if there's takers. If there's no takers, maybe I'm going to consider because if there's people in the area but they're not picking up the job, then I need to consider is someone else using the material and it's not available? Or is it I'm offering too little and it's not worth someone's time. So you can just delete that request and then create a new request to to allow people to, you know. Yeah, So it's, I don't see how it can hurt. I'm very excited to see it work. You know, the first job that someone completed, I I was watching it like it was breaking news. I was so excited to see it all because in the back end we can see the the app responses. So if you clicked post a job, the job appears and if you see somebody bids on it, you can see the bid. And if somebody accepts it, you can see the accept. So it was like it was so invigorating. I mean, it was because you try, you test the app, but it's seeing other people use it without you being involved is actually, it's actually quite great seeing them figure it out. So yeah, it's been, it's been a really intense first month that's but really good. Have you tried it yourself? Oh my God, yes. So it's more for like a 24/7 then? Oh, yes, I'm never off it. You know, we, my husband jokes that it is like my new baby monitor. You know, when I, when I first had my baby, you kind of go everywhere with your baby monitor. And now I'm going everywhere looking at the dashboard. It's quite addictive, but it's, yeah, it's, it's really, it's really exciting. You know, it's you, you can't, you don't know what's going to appear next. You don't know what somebody needs access to or where they're based or yeah, it, it, it's really fascinating. So if you use yourself with which volume or a specific provenance research you you you requested. I requested some correspondence between an artist and one of the patrons of the artist, an inventory of a collection that was in France, which was very exciting because I, I got it within 24 hours. The person was just at the right library with the person was actually at the library when the job went live. So I was like divine intervention, you know, this is exactly what I wanted. I wanted somebody to be like, oh, I'm already here, let me claim that job. And I posted something for here in London that I couldn't get to and someone was already there and I got it like within 30, less than 48 hours. So and you can get on doing all your other things, you know, while, while this information, well, somebody just like does this part of the research for you. And then you just get to integrate it into your big, your big body of work that you still need to humanly put together, you know, and just compose and make sure it's right. And, you know, never run it through AI. So I like, I like that it is culture, cultural, you know, everything seems to be going the AI way, how to make everything, you know, the most efficient and how to make everything faster. And, you know, some things we don't need to make faster by very much and we don't need to reinvent. And I'm going to trust the human source 100 * / a computer and. I agree with you in this in this point, because every it's ironic to say this that everything that comes something new, it's going to revolutionize everything. I we were saying before that you said that. Oh the the. Blockchain. The blockchain and they're going to tear apart the the art historians and our and the art market researchers. No, it's not going to. But I mean, I think from a historical perspective, AI can, can help to just to, to take a simple doubt and we sometimes we have to question that, to challenge that, that, that, that doubt and the the answers that we have. It's just seem it doesn't, it's unsustainable if you rely on it 100%, but it can have some, some benefits to some extent. But for a deep research, as we were talking here, now it's, it's mere, it's merely fool. You have to be AI. Look, I, I, I I'm not AIAI won't. No, no, I agree. AI won't replace the years of training we gather as art historians, ancient historians. Archaeologists. Etcetera. And you know, not to, not to be a purist and say there's no place for AI in the world. I mean, I use it to do things I don't want to do. Yes. You know, I, the other day I just gave it a spreadsheet and I was like, make make sure that all the rows, all the columns add up and they're correct. You know, like, I don't care about Excel. It's, I mean, I want things to be right, but I'm not the kind of person who's going to get excited about over an Excel spreadsheet, you know, or sometimes I write a big text and I'm like, I'll drop it all in there and say, please check for typos because it's 2:00 AM and I'm exhausted. Like, you know, do do things that don't really, you know, help me out. You don't have to do my job for me. You can't you can't do it better than I do it my job. That's true the the the fact for most people. But help me, you know, help enhance certain areas of it. You know, just just. Having the due diligence, essentially, yeah, yeah. Just check just you know and. This is also becomes a problem in in students themselves and they say like they proudly say, and I've seen it here on YouTube and in interviews as well. Oh, I think Jack GPT for doing the thing for doing my for doing my, my assignment is this is an an undergraduate level. And I was hearing this and hearing in talks with some of my colleagues in university when I was assisting them on the teaching and saying, why are you doing this? Because we going to you guys going to use this, You're going to use AI to do the whole assessment of 2000 words. We going to catch you anyways because a. 100%. The the text isn't, isn't clear. It's not at your own language. And two, here at Swans University and I think across the UK university in general, we have an AI tool called Turnitin. Oh yes, we had. I had Turnitin in my day when I was a long time ago. So that we are able to detect whether this was AI and one I also have I'd like to Share your story with you as well on this because I when I was tutoring art history of portraiture from and all the all the images were from the Courtholed gallery. I had one pupil that clearly he wrote in AI, but at the same time that that pupil was honest in saying. Due to some personal issues, I had to use AI. To write OK. They gave the feedback and say, look, I appreciate your honesty that you used this. I didn't mark it. And I and I have the empathy to say, well, I understand that issue. But as a caution from this day forward, please do not use this if you go to, to, to university because we will catch you and the and the pupil will say OK. And then on the next day it was the resubmission of his, of his assessment and he got he, he had a great mark so. Yeah, I mean, look, this, there's always ways to be crafty. If anything, you know, he won himself a few more time to write it, but it could have gone either way. You know, someone else could have said, yeah, I don't ask for an extension, but you know, you don't. You can't. You know, you're not allowed to use AI. It just, yeah, I mean, it's not supposed to make people lazier. It's supposed to make people more efficient. And I think this is what, where one of the key issues that arises is it's, there's part of human creativity and like human responsibility, but you have to do somebody. Like when a client comes to us, they want Tom and myself to do the research, but they, I mean, they can pick any researcher they want. So if they come to you, it means that they trust you to do the best job at something. So you cannot take that trust that is put into your many decades. And you know, Tom has had a much longer career than I have and he's so incredibly widely respected in the art world. People know that, you know, they're not going to come to answer the request. And then they're, we're going to get tragedy PT to research it. Sometimes we, we will, we have this long brainstorming sessions because Tom is based in Eastbourne and we do a lot of Zoom calls to brainstorm about research cases. And sometimes we'll go on Zoom for 2-3 hours talking about a case. And then it'll be like, let's let's let's ask tragedy PT, let's see what it knows. And it's like, OK, great. It knows nothing. We already knew that. So it's, you know, I'm like, OK, great. Thank you for thank you for telling us Nothing very helpful. But yeah, it's good for like, you know, it's really good for if you have like something that's handwritten and you cannot make out the handwriting. Like if you need help transcribing something in a foreign language, if you upload the picture to like any of the AI bolts, they'll they'll most likely figure it out. And you know what, just great. I, I mean, I don't want to go blind trying to decipher handwriting that makes no sense to me in a language I don't know. So if the AI can help me do that, that is very good use for it. But you know, I, I mean just everything within its own like limits, you know, like it, it needs to be kept under track regularly, yes. And I I agree on that point and just having a 5050 in this, in this case, let's say use more 90% of the brain, 10% on AI technology. So to. Speak yes, and if you're lucky enough and you have 90% of your brain working all the time, you don't need anything. So going back to source, yeah, did you have any IT issues before? I, I wouldn't call them issues per SE. It was just different areas of knowledge. You know, you come up with an idea and you're like, how hard can it be to put it together? And turns out it's quite hard. You know, if you're, if I have a research problem, I know how to solve it, even if I cannot solve it myself and I need to consult another expert or a fellow colleague who I know might have more expertise in a certain area, I can do that very confidently. But when it comes to putting together an app, I don't know, I didn't know more than there's a back end and there's AUI and you know, I'm like, how hard can it be? So, you know, I kept throwing things at them. Thankfully, the, the IT team I work with, they're incredible. They're, they're really good. I mean, they got it right away. But again, I just kept throwing things like, let's do this and let's do that and how about this? And then you come to the realization that, you know, it's like 10s of thousands line of code for every time anything you might think it's a good idea. So they're very good at training me back and like, you know, being like having like a staggered approach. And I quite like things to be perfect. Like, you know, I thought that once the app goes out, that I, the app can only go out when it's perfect and final. And from the developers to my friends to everyone said there's no such thing as a perfect app that you'll never need to. That's why people do updates. That's why you get updates on apps because you're constantly adding features or feeding or fixing bugs or getting feedback and, and inputting those. So yeah, at times I'll open when we were still in the testing Phase, I would open it and I'm like, I don't think it's doing anything today. And then I'd speak to them and then they say, oh, well, we're doing XYZ. And you know, this is what happened. And we were expecting this. And I I started feeling like it's, it's my baby, but they kind of know my baby better. So most mostly of the technical side, OK, I have, I have, I have a brother and I have a sister who can, who can man my my baby. And then yeah. And then the rest of the, the, the literacy. No, this is mine. So this Yeah, I. Don't know. Look, look, it's, I think it's for me, it's been like a very good learning curve because you learn how to adjust your expectations and what is you kind of start getting a sense of what is feasible, what is not, what is OK, what isn't Like you learn to sort of Curb Your emotions. Not everything is tragic or not everything is amazing. You know, it's very much a work in, in process. And you know, they, I see on their on their side, you know, it's when we did the first job, they were so excited that we did the first job. And you know, they tried to, you know, get the word out and help users like in other countries use it. So it is, I'm very happy and it's, it makes me feel comfortable in the fact that I know that like the infrastructure is in good hands and I'm now just focusing on the development side of things, bringing more users, making sure that there are jobs for people to fulfil, making sure that what they ask for, we have people who can retrieve them. So we do a lot of manual reach out. We send hundreds of emails a day to students, PhD students, researchers, They're all 1 by 1 personalized emails that we send out and invite them to use source. Yeah. Because the more people there are, again, the more supply and the more demand. And it's one, it's a marketplace. So you kind of need both at the same time. If you only have demand but you don't have supply, it's not good. But you have supply and no jobs. It's like, it's, again, not good. So yeah, it's it's, but it's fine. You know, this is not the kind of app that was going to go viral overnight. You know, it's not the social media app or, you know, it's a it's kind of a niche. It's a very useful app that I think all of the students would benefit from it. But we are being patient and trying to make sure that at any point in time, no matter how people are on the app, that they are satisfied rather than rushing to on board like thousands of people. So we're much more focused on like all the users being organic and they, them having actual needs and actual access so that you know, you, you get a real sense of what, what is feasible in it and. I do think again as we keep saying that it will be, it will be a great, it will be a great app for the long run. And are there any, any updates you make you constantly thinking about on how am I going to improve the the accessibility to source? I will. Would you? Will you include any novelties for the app? For. For long term. I don't think that at the moment we're making any major changes. I think we initially contemplated having a chat in it so that the users can speak to each other. But the app is rated for people also younger than 16 can use it. And we are very much aware about, you know, having moderation in those conversations so that we don't allow inappropriate content or anything to circulate. So there's no chat currently, which means that we are, again, we're mediating the conversations. There's when somebody posts a job, there's a job description there that they can be as detailed as they need to. And the person who claims the job, they can also respond to that job request. And if there's further information needed, then we have people on the team who are happy to sort of mediate both sides. But even when people are on the app, we don't disclose their identity. So you get your first name and the first initial of your surname again, for better privacy and for better user experience. So I'm not sure. I'm not sure if we expect currently we use Tribe. I believe very soon we'll also integrate PayPal that has more, more reach globally than Tribe does in more parts of the world. Whenever the boy says it's ready to be ready. I'm not pushing them. I know that they know it's something we're doing. So, you know, I know it's on their list. But yeah, we're just trying to get, I like getting good stories out of it. You know, I like people telling me that, oh, I've been doing this research now struggling to get information. And then I got this thing on through source and then it sent me on a completely different path as a researcher. I love a good research story. So eventually I think we have we've launched a sub stack, OK that my colleague Amelia is primarily offering and we're hoping that in the future when there's more jobs, we can get users who have completed jobs and had good research journeys. Tell us how source helped them out. But yes, it's because too new. We're just, you know, trying to make sure that what we have works fine and works smoothly for everyone. And I think it's a bit premature to just already planned the next update. I think if there's a massive demand for something to change or if there's a request, we're going to consider it. But I think currently it covers all the ground that we initially set out for it to cover. Sure. So yeah, we'll see. I. Think it's it will be something positive for the upcoming for the. I hope so for. This coming month. I hope so. We are going to send a newsletter at the end on once it's been a month that the app has been live to yeah, just to give everyone a sense of the community we're building and the jobs that we've completed and where. But yeah, we we today we put out an A a call. We're looking for researchers in Japan. Wow. So if you have any friends in Japan or if you have any, I. Actually do. Do I? Brilliant. Well, if you can. Well, he's he's not in the he's more stem he's. A. He's a chemist, OK, So that could be used. I mean, look, it doesn't matter because I think in one of the project that is coming forward, coming through that we need access to something in Japan. They just need to retrieve a file from 100 years ago and just tell us what it says. So yeah, great. Happy I mentioned it. We're also looking for people in Latin America, so yeah, hopefully. Where are most of your listeners? Are they in the UK? So the top ones are always of course United States and then I have second place would be the UK and Germany and Spain. And then I have a few others from from Japan of my home country in Portugal and Latin American countries as well. OK, but. The fact I haven't checked the the latest update of of PhD launch in terms of audience. Where the demographic? Yeah, but, and now you've just awakened my curiosity of. Checking. Yeah, go find out. You'll find out where the people are. But yeah, I mean, you know, it's, I've been in research for, you know, so long. And again, there's parts in the world we don't have colleagues in because we've never had research really on that part of the world. So, yeah, places like, I don't know, Russia, it's hard to get to know. It's hard to get to Russia for research and you know, parts of Africa are very hard to get to, but are also, you know, we don't know what the catalogs have because they're not digitized. So they know there's a lot of challenges to research and you know, source is not going to sell all of them, but hopefully it can just solve a good part of them and I'll be happy with that and. I think that again, this is going to be, it's going to be a positive, a positive thing in the upcoming the upcoming months. Well, do let me know when you use it. No, of course, I'll, I'll, I need to play it around a bit more so that I could use to it. I could get used to it because from our first conversation when we had there is a specific, a specific volume. It's a series of articles and it's about, it's in ancient history. It's it's about migrations in in the Middle East, specifically in Syria. OK. So yeah, that's that's that is what I'm looking for. Why I need to check it? Out. Is it in? Is it in English, the original language? Well, the publisher is German, but the it's a series of scholars. The then they they're not British, but it's everything is written in English. OK. And. It's I can have a look around and check if the where's the ISBN and then trying to. Look looking for. This article so. I mean I'm sure anyone on source it's happy to help if they have legal access to it. Besides, besides source, do you have any other apps that you've worked on? Or we don't have another app. We I do run an online Academy. Yes. Which is on training people who want to become provenance researchers. So we have courses in provenance research in specifically in doing research in the antiquities world. What's? The name. Of it it's called the art market Academy. I'm I'm so bad at promoting stuff. I'm I'm thank you I'm like, I have an Academy. You don't need to know the name of it. It is what it does yes, it's called the art market Academy and all courses. We launched this during COVID and historically now it's a lot better. But the resources and trainings in provenance research have not been the most easy to come across 9 out of 10 times you'd need depending on where you are in the world, you need to travel on location to go to, you know to attend the course. When I was getting my training, there was nothing online. So I had you know, I travelled around quite a bit to follow where the workshops were and then during COVID things came to a standstill and I thought, well, this is a good time I'm stuck at home anyway. Let's just pray. And they're all pre recorded. They are subtitled in I think over 15 languages now. And people, the one of the greatest benefits is, first of all, again, you don't have the travel, you don't have the accommodation expenses. You can paint instalments to to to cater to students. And because it's pre recorded, you can take it anytime you want. So you can be in Australia, you can be in China, you can be in LA and you can take the course at any time. It's it's not meant, you know, it's not an experiential thing. It doesn't replace you the experience of travelling somewhere if you want for training or education or you know, you get so much more. But when it's if you have limited options and you really want training, you can get it. So, and it's been great. We've had people from first year at university to people in their 70s who are collectors and wants to research their own collections taking the course. We've had, you know, moms who would not be able to, you know, have busy lives and would not be able to take time off to travel abroad. And it's great. So everybody completes their course at their own pace. And then they can reach out and get in touch with me or the other instructors to figure out if they have questions, If they want a Zoom call. We do those on request, 1 to 1. The course never expires. So once you get it, you have it forever. And yeah. And then at the end, we do like a career session where someone finishes it and then they tell us, you know, why they took it, what they're trying to achieve, what their questions are. And then we managed to get them. Yeah, we just managed to get them to do to see if there's a work opportunities or if there's people who we know are hiring. But a lot of the people who have taken the Academy and were want work experience, we do give them internships, OK. Interesting. So if they have certain areas of interest, either we'll keep them on file and see when the case comes by that they can work on or if they want more general experience, we try to accommodate. But yeah, we try. We have a really long list of interns who are very eager to fulfil jobs and get research experience. So we, we've created a bit of ecosystem where you know, you can get the training, you can get the work, excuse me, experience. And then if you want to work for other people, you can just check out opportunities on source and get more work experience. So. It's the the whole all the courses are the structured in different sequences and then do they? Yes, there's, there's, there's three courses currently. So there's an introduction to provenance research and it's, it's a quite a basic course to let you know if this is the kind of thing you'd enjoy doing. Yes. And then there's a how to course, which is basically it tells you how to assess risk in provenance, what tools we use. And there's almost all case studies are from my personal work. So it's not the kind of information that they would get anywhere else. And then there is an antiquities course that is taught by a different professor by Christa Sirianis. And that one has a final exam and not an easy final exam. But yes, it's, I mean, it's been, it's the kind of thing that there's constant interest on any one of the courses at any point in time. And then there's seasonal periods where other is the beginning of the year and somebody has a resolution to learn more about something or it's the beginning of summer and people are more free from their usual academic workload. So yes, again, it launched in 2022, I want to say, and we've had hundreds of people take the course. So it's been it's cool, it's very cool. I have AI have a very good network of students and of colleagues who share the same, the same interest. So you know, it's not it's not a lonely work do. They they reach to you. You reached out to them after they take the course. I do tend to check in or if somebody's taking a really long time completing the course, I just remind them that they haven't completed the course and that they should. But yeah, I mean, there is the old person that completes the course and I never hear from them. They just, you know, they're not interested in career advice. They just wanted to get the experience and run with it. So yeah, all sorts of people. I mean, I had someone who was in their late 70s and they, he took the course and then we've spoken like 5 times since because he's tried to do some research on his own collection. And yeah, I'm just, we're just helping them along the way. And obviously we don't charge for that. So it's yeah, it's great. I mean, when you it's, it's a good thing when you give people the research bug, it's like you when you give them the tools and the trainings and they love them doing their own research. And it's like, it's not great for our work because sometimes I'm like, great, we are training all these people, they're going to do their own work and we're not going to get as much work because people are doing their own research. But you know, for me, it's not fun to check databases on people's behalf. You know, it's not my idea of research. I want to solve a mystery. If I can teach you 10 things that you can do before ever coming to us, I'm very happy to do that. You know there is no value in gatekeeping basic resources. Yes. So you know, the more educated people are about what they're looking at and how to decipher information and you know how to assess risk. Like if you look at the provenance and you don't have the names, the ability to understand, OK, well, I don't have a name in 1939 is more dangerous than not having a name of an honor in 1812 historically, you know, so it's it's it's it's great seeing people become excited about doing their own research and just, you know, getting on with it themselves. Yes. And that's that's why I think what students someday must be encouraged to do so. Yeah. So you also appeared in as guest lecturers, as a guest lecturer in several universities and including in podcasts. We were talking about the. Podcast I was doing. I was doing it yesterday and we were talking about the AI where you said you've asked exhaustively a question about a provenance study you were conducting and you asked several questions to the to, to AI. And the AI just completely stopped and said, I have no, I have no more to engage with you. And I checked the podcast. This is all about art and it was really interesting to to hear about it. Not just for I was thinking of another podcast. OK. Yes, you also appeared on another show as well and I forgot completely. Arcarta the Arcarta one Yes, the. Arcarta one if you if you had to choose either one of the podcasts she were you were featured in as a guest or the university guest lecture, what which one would you choose or which one did you find most interesting to interact with? Look, I love being in a podcast, even though I, you know, I do find them rather stressful, but I love being in the classroom. Yes. And it's primarily because, you know, our conversations and in podcasts are quite general. But when we're doing the lectures, we go really deep in, in research. And I, and I love that, you know, and you, you see people have like a light bulb moment. You know, they come in the classroom knowing close to nothing about the topic and then they come out at the other end with so many questions. Or I teach some of the VNA courses that are on topics like thefts from the museums or fake and forgeries or, you know, the history of the art market and you get very diverse audiences. And I, yeah, I, I, I, I do prefer in person lecture with a group to a podcast. And this will be my last podcast. No one will ever invite me do anything again. Like, great, she doesn't want to come, that's fine. OK. Well, I, I have nothing to say. I, I thought I wanted to invite and because we were talking about the sale. Now you said that to say maybe I shouldn't. And you're probably thinking, and I made an exception and got this person in who doesn't even have a PhD. And this is how they now I think it's only look, they there's different purposes. Sure, you know, obviously, if you're trying to raise awareness through something, for something going on the podcast is going to get you to a wider audience. But if you are trying to train people and pass on skills, obviously you cannot do that on the podcast unless, you know, you're running your own podcast and you are like focused on certain topics, you know, because I couldn't come to your podcast and be like, OK, I'm going to share my, my, my, my, my keynote now. And in my keynote, these are the databases that we check. And, you know, so it's, it's a different type of content, but I, you know, there's that expression that says those who don't do teach. And I think that's the stupidest thing ever. Yes. Because you know, it's, and it, I mean, some of one of my best professors that I've had in the past, you know, there are people who have, who have their own pH DS and they've done their practice in the work or, or maybe people are archaeologists and they've been on the field and they can come and teach you about that experience. And if the people that do don't come forward to teach you, the people that just know the theory, they will always have a limited perspective on a lot of things. You know, I always want, if I had to pick between the provenance researcher of a museum telling me stories or a freelance historian telling me just their own stories, I'd always go with the with the person that has been in the museum. And I've seen thousands of objects to tell me stories. And it's not because the historian is not going to have valuable information, but it's always going to be coming from a more theoretical point of view. And I, it's a very hands on thing. Prominence research. You need people to do things. It's an active job. You need to go here, go there, find this person, track this person down, compare handwriting's, compare notes, compare timelines. I mean, it's, it's like solving a puzzle. And the best way to solve a puzzle is to solve the puzzle is not to hear about, you know, how somebody imagines the puzzle to be solved. So yeah, I love, I love teaching a class. No, I think it's a it's a great skill as well and it's a great experience to transfer information, even though it can be, let's just say sometimes it is accurate for us, but sometimes it is challenged. It is challenged for by with with our peers. But the best thing is, is to share that information so that others can learn from it and then study it. And then even doing some deep more research, as I said, challenging around it rather than as you said, I have the keynote here, I have this. Let me pitch you out of this. There's so many podcasts out in the world as you and then for example, where you just don't get much of it. And it becomes boring because. The theme becomes the same, especially for say business businesses, podcasts. I mean, they have all they say in different in in more colorful language as possible as ever, but the result will be the same and you don't don't get out of it. And then if you oh, OK, let me just buy this course so that I can have some in more insights, which ended up being selling something that realistically you won't take much out of it. No, I agree. For this podcast PhD launch. As I said in this, this comes from COVID as well. And when I started Miami thesis and I said I started Miami thesis, I was playing around with some of the stuff. And then if I get into a PHDI will start a podcast. And the podcast, the main concept, it's it started to inviting PhD first. But then I, I've brought in the concept following the feedback of my listeners. I mean the people who were close to me, close to university, who would listen to the podcast and say you should run the concept. Now, I invite people who are business entrepreneurs, who have some academic degrees and then they can give advice also to PhDs as well, PhDs, post PhDs, academics, industry leaders, as I said. And what the objective that here is, is to share what you can do with your PhD, but also experience the days, the weeks, the months around your PhD. What essentially is the PhD is beyond the thesis. It what goes the thesis? What happens during the thesis, before the thesis and after the thesis? The universe of PhD, basically. Yes, well, you know, I do plan eventually. I think we, we kind of touched on it when we were first speaking that I, you know, I have had research topics that have been on my desk for a decade. And I think eventually I'd like to, you know, to carve out time to just focus and do a PhD. So I, I don't know if I'm going to be 50 or 60 when I do it, but I, I did like to give it a go at some point. And then. But if you yeah. Then if you go, we ought to do ought to do this again. We have to do this again. Yeah. And then I can tell you about my actual PhD. Yeah, absolutely. I'd love to come back again it. Would be around provenance, yes. Art research, OK. Any specific time? Any specific period? Or it could be, I mean, I've been researching this traveling exhibition, that of modern British paintings that were left the UK for France in the early 1940s, and it it has never come back it. Never came. Back, no. It was confiscated by the German Navy of all groups, and they've never really come back. And it's a very odd case because a lot of the elements of the story are not traditionally what you expect in looting stories and that type of story. So I have hundreds of pages already on on the research and the various people involved in it. And at one point it will come together. I don't know if it's going to be a PhD or maybe it just ends up being a book, but it's the longest piece of research I've ever done. And because it's not solved yet, I don't feel like I can let it go, you know, when you have the research bug. So we'll see. I will keep you posted, I promise. So without without pressure, it's just source is is get is get gaining popularity. It's going it's it's going to be a great app. And I think just for now it's maybe focus on that and then well. I do I I I did you know, Liz, I have a motto that is I can do it all, but I cannot do it all at once. And it's and it's something good to live by. You know, you can get inspired to do something new every other day, but I think once you start doing something, you just need to stick with it. And that means, you know, having to train yourself to have more discipline, to have more patience, to learn more, to be more humble about what you know and what you don't know. And, you know, there's. Yeah. You always come out on the other end of any big project knowing less about the world. So yes, I am. I am. And I'll be focused on source for a while because I needed to work so I can use it for my own, but also because I love a good success feel good story. And I, you know, I'd love it if I, you know, I hear stories of people using it properly. So I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that, you know, people use it and enjoy it. And yeah. So I think, I think we can just wrap it up here and then just saying to have what advice would you give to the students, graduates or anyone who not only wants to set up a establish a business, but also get into the into the art world, whether it's it's provenance or any other specific specific field within the art world. And how can they become members of source? So like 3 questions in all in. One, I, I would say that, you know, you'll usually hear that people get discouraged from studying the arts and, you know, they are pushed into other fields. I think people perform best in the areas where they're most passionate about. So I think if you want to be in the art world because you love art, or you love the art market, or you love history of the market and or you love artists, then great. Don't come to the art market because you think it's going to be a good place to make money. It's actually not very easy to make good money in the art world. So at least while you struggle, make sure that you're struggling doing something that you enjoy doing. And that is, that is similar to my advice I'd give someone for collecting, you know, if you want to start collecting art, just start buying things that you enjoy looking at that you'd like to live with. Don't buy something because you think, oh, in three years this will be worth more. Don't do that. And, you know, there's people who buy in the millions and they can do that and they never live with the art they live in like, you know, Freeport in Geneva, those artworks. And they never know. But the average person, I think if you have the possibility to buy art, buy art because you like it and live with it and, you know, get to know the artist and their work. And with source, I mean, I just like people to see it used as creatively and, you know, as efficiently as possible. You know, don't be lazy with research. If you have the option to go to the library, always go to the library. You know, somebody getting your information, whether through source or something else does not is no replacement for you getting first hand knowledge. But yeah, I mean, I, I really hope that you can create a researcher community that is reliable, that is trustworthy, that is enjoyable and that, you know, people look forward to using. Yeah. And then we'll see where we go from there. Yeah, and I think as again just saying all the best with source and. I think it's going to. Be a great a great app for for the for the long run and will be helpful for many researchers, students and who want to be providers and providers and requesters and just to just to finish just before finishing off so where they can network with you any social media where they can. I'm, I'm on LinkedIn, Angelina Giovanniaga and you can reach out to us through our main website, which is be my source.com. We also have Instagram, which I'm never on, but other members of the team are and we are on sub stack currently posting. We're going to be posting research tips and how to navigate certain archives and so on. So yeah, I can provide you with a list of the best place, best ways to reach us. Now I'll. Be waiting for that then. OK, Yeah. So, Angelina, thank you so much for this amazing conversation. I'll provide the The Art Market Academy be my source. Thank you very kind. Put on the show notes for the students and graduates out there and for those who are tuning in. Thank you all for tuning in and it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. This has been a very nice conversation, I really appreciate it. Thank you Likewise. Thanks, Louie.