Slides to Accompany a Presentation on Archival Research in the Digital Humanities. Given 8 July 2014 at the The Bader International Study Centre (BISC)

1. M. H. Beals
Sheffield Hallam University
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SLIDES
ABOUT ME

2. AN OVERVIEW
The Promise and Perils of Digital Archives
A Philosophy of Digital Research
How ‘The Digital Humanities’ Have Shaped My Research

3. DIGITAL V.
DIGITISED

4. DIGITIZED ARCHIVES
• A Digital Version of a Traditional Space
• A Different but Recognisable Experience
• In-Built Authority and Credibility
• Questions Raised:
• Materiality
• Curation
• Malleability

5. DIGITAL ARCHIVES
• Exists in Myriad Forms
• Narrative Curation
• Non-Linear Curation
• Interactive Data Sets
• Raises Questions of
• Authority
• Authenticity
• Versionality
• Ephemerality

6. EFFICIENCY V.
CONVENIENCE
• Irregular or Unsociable Hours
• Long-Distance Retrieval
• Fewer Financial Constraints
• Multi-Site Collaboration
• Immediate Cross-Referencing
Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/seandreilinger/4101454002/

7. DIGITAL MATERIAL
Image http://edtechdigest.wordpress.com/2013/11/18/trends-cartoon-ron-morgan/
• Google is not a Research Assistant
• Hidden & Inconstant Algorithms
• Herd Mentality Reshapes Focus
• Unclear Distinction Between
• Information Gathering
• Data Processing
• Scholarly Analysis

8. •Loss of Curation Autonomy
• Digitisation Choices
• Paywalls
•Software Limitations
•Digital Dependencies
•Temptation for Footnote Tableaus
DIGITISED MATERIAL

9. A PHILOSOPHY

10. ASKING HARDER
QUESTIONS
• What Would Have Been Impossible Previously?
• Range, Depth, and (Most Importantly) Quantity
• Data Manipulation
• Cross-Referencing
• Notes, Memory, Photocopies, Digital Imagery
• Developing External Synapses (Connection Making)
• A Place for ‘Traditional’ Questions and Research?

11. CLOSE READING
BIG DATA
• Using Digital Tools to Gather and Organise Material Efficiently
• Manual Examination and Analysis of Relevant Material
• Digital Analysis of Relevant Material

12. MY RESEARCH

13. MAPPING
SCISSORS & PASTE
A Multi-Modal Examination of the British Library’s
Nineteenth-Century (Digital) Newspaper Collection to Determine
The Spread of Colonial News
The Traits of Highly Replicated News Content
The Directionality of Information Networks Based

14. Step 1: Manually Identifying:
• Datelines
• Sections
• Attributions
• In-Text References
• Maintained Errors
• House Style
• Inconsistencies
A CASE STUDY

15. A CASE STUDY
Original, Sydney Gazette, 8 November 1815 Reprint, London Courier, 2 January 1817

16. A CASE STUDY
Reprint, London Courier, 2 January 1817 Reprint, Caledonian Mercury, 6 January 1817

17. A CASE STUDY
Reprint, Caledonian Mercury, 6 January 1817 Reprint, Aberdeen Journal, 8 January 1817

18. SCOTTISH NEWS NETWORKS
(INTER-TEXTUAL)

19. </item>
<id>001569</id>
<newspaper_title>Glasgow Advertiser</newspaper_title>
<newspaper_city>Glasgow</newspaper_city>
<newspaper_province>Scotland</newspaper_province>
<newspaper_country>United Kingdom</newspaper_country>
<year>1794</year>
<month>2</month>
<day>7</day>
<page_number>5</page_number>
<section_name>London</section_name>
<articletype>news</articletype>
<keywords>Quakerism</keywords>
<text>
<page>
<column>
<paragraph>
<line>The Quakers of America have addressed an</line>
<line>humble Representation to the Legislative Body of</line>
<line>that country, praying that exhibitions, Preludes,</line>
<line>Interludes, yea, all <italics>lewds</italics> and stage-plays may be</line>
<line>discountenanced, pointing out their pernicious ten-</line>
<line>dency in corrupting the morals of the People.</line>
</paragraph>
</column>
</page>
</text>
</item>
MACHINE READABLE
TRANSCRIPTIONS

20. Creating Meme Dictionaries
•The Most Basic of All Hunches
•Placing All Articles with Significantly Similar Text In a Single Location
Scoring Related-ness
•Explaining What the Hunches Are
•Explaining Which Hunches Are the Most Important
Determining Directionality
•Chronology
•Geographical Limitations
•Relatedness
MACHINE READABLE HUNCHES
Ada Lovelace, 1840
The First [?] Computer Programmer

21. DIGITAL GHOSTS
• The Offline Penumbra (P. Leary)
• The Redacted and Removed
• The Lost and ‘Forgotten’
• The Wayback Machine
http://web.archive.org

22. CONCLUSION
The Digital Humanities as a Philosophy,
Not a Discipline:
Take Pride in Your Work
Don’t Be Afraid to Re-Purpose from Other Applications
Try Harder
Seriously, Try Harder

23. BROUGHT TO YOU BY
Good
Will
And
Faerie
Dust
All Slides Use CC0 or CC-BY Images and Are Released Under The CC-BY 4.0 Licence
SLIDES ABOUT ME