hammer and nails · choosing a tool - goal: create, add to corpus.search and browse using facets ....
TRANSCRIPT
Hammers and Nails
Tools in the Digital Humanities
DAM and Preservation Support for Digital Humanities | February 11, 2013
Elli Mylonas & Jean Bauer (@elli_m + @jean_bauer)
Digital Humanities Librarians,
Brown University Library
The Digital Humanities Spectrum from Projects to Tools
Agnostic
Integrated
Reliant
“Pure Data”
“Pure Tools” Paper Machines
Goal: Explore early American publishing Resource: Dataset, regularized and prepared for a variety of applications—visualization, network analysis, mapping
Books Published in the Americas before 1800
Goal: Collect and disseminate a set of inscriptions Resource: A corpus encoded using the TEI/Epidoc schema accessible through a faceted search interface.
http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/Inscriptions/index.shtml
Goal: A rich collection of resources on the town of Amherst Resource: A collaborative, community based project with 841 catalogued items, and about 40 Exhibits built in Omeka.
http://www.digitalamherst.org
Goal: Explore digital publication using media and interaction Resource: A custom digital essay shaped completely by its presentation.
http://vectors.usc.edu/projects/index.php?project=91
Mark Hansen's shi jian : time in Vectors 3.2.
Goal: Enable the exploration of large quantities of documents Resource: A Zotero plugin that performs analyses, topic modelling on OCRed PDFs within Zotero.
https://github.com/chrisjr/papermachines
Paper Machines
So, how do you select a tool/application?
Depends on what kind of project you are trying to
make.
What are your source materials?
text original prose/poetry
images of text transcriptions
time based media sound recordings
video
data numeric
geographic
static media digital photographs
surrogates of artwork
What is your end goal?
How do you plan to transform/analyze your sources? What will the project look like? What will people learn from your project? How will people interact with your project?
What are your technical resources?
What types of technical expertise can you bring/hire? Who will build/deploy the project? Who will maintain the project once it's live? (Not the same as preservation!) How are similar projects developed and maintained?
Narrowing your tool options
Potential Tools
Works with your Sources
Can be implemented with your available
resources
Helps achieve your main goals
Choosing a tool Goal: Visualization, analysis, mapping Tools: Many - Excel pivot tables, D3, GIS, … Skills/Support: appropriate to tool selected DAM/Preservation: Relatively Easy
Books Published in the Americas before 1800
Choosing a tool - Goal: Create, add to corpus. Search and browse using facets Tools: XML dbs (eXist), XML indexers (SOLR), simple pages (HTML) Skills/Support: Good institutional technical support DAM/Preservation: Major goal of the project
http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/Inscriptions/index.shtml
http://www.digitalamherst.org
Choosing a tool Goal: Read, research, browse and add new objects Tools: publication software (WP, Omeka) Skills/Support: Easy to use for authors, attractive interface for users DAM/Preservation: relatively easy for objects. Exhibits, less.
Choosing a tool Goal: Reading, Exploration of visual rhetoric, new media Tools: Custom interface Skills/Support: Dedicated developer and designer DAM/Preservation: difficult. Documentation may be easier http://vectors.usc.edu/projects/index.php?project=91
Mark Hansen's shi jian : time in Vectors 3.2.
Choosing a tool Goal: Analysis, exploration of documentary sources Sources: n/a Skills/Support: Understanding of DH methodologies DAM/Preservation: ? Documentation of methods, results
https://github.com/chrisjr/papermachines
Paper Machines
To continue the conversation …
@elli_m
@jean_bauer
Please fill out the evaluation: bit.ly/nercomp_DigitalCurtain