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| No, it's not quite like this . . . It's more like sitting at your laptop until your butt falls asleep. |
Digital humanities has been the new buzzword in the academic world for the past decade or so, and with good reason — while we tend to think of computer technology as being a tool of STEM fields, it also has tremendous potential to revolutionize fields such as our own. Over the past several years I've been involved with DH-centric efforts here at UC — including my work with the Elliston Project, our annual THATCamps, and as part of the advisory group behind our forthcoming Digital Scholarship Center — and through my work at UPenn as well (including PennSound, Jacket2, and the HiPSTAS project).
Originally, I'd intended to spend this day giving you a much more comprehensive overview of the realm of digital humanities, but I think it would be a better use of our time to provide you with a few practical tools you might find useful in your work this semester and throughout your time at UC.
Google Books: Simply put, this is the world's largest full-text database. A lot of the material is only available in limited preview or snippet form, but that can still help you find what page(s) what you're looking for will be on in the hard copy of the book. Simple keyword searching can help you track down certain scenes, phrases, quotes, ideas, etc. in an instant, especially when you didn't bother to take notes, outline, annotate the book, etc. Searching books on Amazon is a second option when the specific edition you want is locked down on Google. That information's still there, however, and that leads to our next tool. Beyond searching within one book, doing a more general search is a good way to find critical perspectives and/or information you might not have otherwise known about.
Google Ngram viewer: Google's Ngram viewer allows you to trace trends in usage in books over time from 1800 to 2000 (using the complete corpus of Google Books' archives) and make conclusions about what influences those trends. Here, for example, we can see the use of "Dylan" as it gets a boost from Dylan Thomas in the 1950s, a bigger boost from Bob Dylan in the 60s into the 70s, and then become the name of at least seven kids in your eighth grade class:
Originally, I'd intended to spend this day giving you a much more comprehensive overview of the realm of digital humanities, but I think it would be a better use of our time to provide you with a few practical tools you might find useful in your work this semester and throughout your time at UC.
Google Books: Simply put, this is the world's largest full-text database. A lot of the material is only available in limited preview or snippet form, but that can still help you find what page(s) what you're looking for will be on in the hard copy of the book. Simple keyword searching can help you track down certain scenes, phrases, quotes, ideas, etc. in an instant, especially when you didn't bother to take notes, outline, annotate the book, etc. Searching books on Amazon is a second option when the specific edition you want is locked down on Google. That information's still there, however, and that leads to our next tool. Beyond searching within one book, doing a more general search is a good way to find critical perspectives and/or information you might not have otherwise known about.
Google Ngram viewer: Google's Ngram viewer allows you to trace trends in usage in books over time from 1800 to 2000 (using the complete corpus of Google Books' archives) and make conclusions about what influences those trends. Here, for example, we can see the use of "Dylan" as it gets a boost from Dylan Thomas in the 1950s, a bigger boost from Bob Dylan in the 60s into the 70s, and then become the name of at least seven kids in your eighth grade class:
You can compare terms against one another (separating them with commas) and adjust the time frame as needed, and it'll also provide Google Books results broken down by time periods for you to browse. While the Ngram viewer works well for historical searches, it doesn't help much with more contemporary issues. For that, we'll need yet another tool.
Google Trends: The Google Trends database starts in 2004 and tracks information in more or less realtime. It can parse results accounting for web traffic vs. appearances in books and other printed media indexed in Google Books, and can similarly track interest over time, regional interest, and related search terms. Here, for example, you can see Google traffic for Sam Dubose and Ray Tensing from 2015 to the present:
The Wayback Machine: The Internet Archive is dedicated to the seemingly-impossible task of documenting the ever-changing landscape of the world wide web from relatively close to its cultural watershed moment in the mid-1990s to the present day. One of their more useful tools is The Wayback Machine, which allows users to browse multiple snapshot versions of a website as catalogued by its army of web crawlers. It's a wonderful way to get your hands on data that's otherwise inaccessible, whether the site just happens to be down temporarily or went offline years ago. It's also a wonderful tool that can be used to track changes that someone might or might not want you to know they've made.
Notetaking Apps: You need a way to keep track of your digital stuff. A lot of people like Evernote. I like Google Keep. It allows me to import entries straight from my browser and tag them as necessary to keep my info straight. Consider getting into the habit of using a resource like this sooner rather than later.
Google Trends: The Google Trends database starts in 2004 and tracks information in more or less realtime. It can parse results accounting for web traffic vs. appearances in books and other printed media indexed in Google Books, and can similarly track interest over time, regional interest, and related search terms. Here, for example, you can see Google traffic for Sam Dubose and Ray Tensing from 2015 to the present:
The Wayback Machine: The Internet Archive is dedicated to the seemingly-impossible task of documenting the ever-changing landscape of the world wide web from relatively close to its cultural watershed moment in the mid-1990s to the present day. One of their more useful tools is The Wayback Machine, which allows users to browse multiple snapshot versions of a website as catalogued by its army of web crawlers. It's a wonderful way to get your hands on data that's otherwise inaccessible, whether the site just happens to be down temporarily or went offline years ago. It's also a wonderful tool that can be used to track changes that someone might or might not want you to know they've made.
Notetaking Apps: You need a way to keep track of your digital stuff. A lot of people like Evernote. I like Google Keep. It allows me to import entries straight from my browser and tag them as necessary to keep my info straight. Consider getting into the habit of using a resource like this sooner rather than later.
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