In Palladio, scholars can organize their tabular data into digital visualizations with maps and graphs. Using the same data from the WPA Slave Interviews that I used to make Kepler.gl maps and to create text visualization in Voyant Tools, I examine what Palladio can tell us about the same interviews. Its graphs and maps highlight… Continue reading Network Visualization with Palladio
Historical Mapping with Kepler.gl
Kepler.gl lets researchers, as the website says, “render large datasets quickly and efficiently.” Indeed, this open-source software lets the user drag and drop large datasets, apply filters, and apply layers to view the data through points (to mark specific locations) or arcs and lines to track movement. The tool lets the user create geospatial visualizations… Continue reading Historical Mapping with Kepler.gl
What Historians Can Do with Voyant Tools
Voyant Tools is a set of digital tools that enable researchers to explore and interpret texts in new ways. Its opensource, web-based application has five main features: 1. Cirrus – The word cloud feature enlarges and centrally positions the words that occur most frequently in a corpus. It includes a collocation visualization that shows how… Continue reading What Historians Can Do with Voyant Tools
Metadata Matters
This blog explores the importance of metadata and Topy’s capacity to collect metadata for sources photographed by the researcher. Metadata is descriptive information about a source that allows us to locate it in databases. It provides context for the resource and makes it discoverable. For more on metadata, watch Greer Martinand Anna Neatrour, “Using Metadata to… Continue reading Metadata Matters
Database Review of America: History and Life
America: History and Life (AHL), which is available through George Mason University and many other colleges and universities in the U.S., was one of my favorite databases when I was a graduate student in the late 1990s. I read book reviews and journal articles and their abstracts, as I compiled historiographies and studied for qualifying… Continue reading Database Review of America: History and Life
Digitization: What We See
Digitization is the “conversion of an analogue signal or code into a digital signal or code.”[1] The creation of digital representations of historical and cultural documents and artifacts is now commonplace in public history institutions. In an effort to better understand how objects are rendered, I digitized items in my kitchen using photography and video:… Continue reading Digitization: What We See
Finding Usable Digital Data – From Old Books
Digital Humanities scholarship thrives when sources are accessible and unrestricted. This blog details the contents of six different sites that offer a blend of open and restricted materials. From Old Books https://www.fromoldbooks.org/ Each image includes metadata with the collector’s assessment of the work’s rights status. Low-resolution images are open. For example, Choral Recital with the… Continue reading Finding Usable Digital Data – From Old Books
Finding Usable Digital Data – Library of Congress
Digital Humanities scholarship thrives when sources are accessible and unrestricted. This blog details the contents of six different sites that offer a blend of open and restricted materials. Library of Congress https://www.loc.gov/ Rights statements appear in the metadata of each item in the collection. For example, images in the National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection… Continue reading Finding Usable Digital Data – Library of Congress
Finding Usable Digital Data – Holt-Atherton Special Collections
Digital Humanities scholarship thrives when sources are accessible and unrestricted. This blog details the contents of six different sites that offer a blend of open and restricted materials. Holt-Atherton Special Collections – Digital Archives https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/hasc/ Copyright statements accompany the individual sources in the metadata entries. There is a link with preferred credit lines: https://www.pacific.edu/university-libraries/find/holt-atherton-special-collections/fees-and-forms Holt-Atherton… Continue reading Finding Usable Digital Data – Holt-Atherton Special Collections
Finding Usable Digital Data – Prelinger
Digital Humanities scholarship thrives when sources are accessible and unrestricted. This blog details the contents of six different sites that offer a blend of open and restricted materials. Prelinger Archives https://archive.org/details/prelinger See rights information at: https://archive.org/details/prelinger?tab=about The site, originally created by a film collector and now owned by the Library of Congress, includes approximately 11,000… Continue reading Finding Usable Digital Data – Prelinger
