Category: Software Tools

Categories
Software Tools

Palladio

Palladio (stanford.edu)

This software is a mapping, network visualization tool for textual data and mapping data. It allows multilayer evaluation through graphs, maps, and gallery view. The learning curve for this tool is supposedly easier than other open source mapping tools but it does require conversion of this text into readable information for the software. In this learning exercise, the database was already made for me. The majority of the exercise was to download maps using the directions and evaluate interviews from the WPA in Alabama. The biggest time constraint would be building the database to show the network and graphs for future digital humanity projects for your own work. The website has easy to use tutorials and is not difficult. The graphing function and links help make historical data interpretable but at times can make it seem that there are associations that are not truly that relevant nor important. The graph function allows interpretation of historical data that can help confirm research already done or can show new connections between points that was not seen before.

Categories
Software Tools

Kepler.gl

Software demo of mapping tool that can be used to make maps from the latitude and longitude in each data column in a comma seperated value file. This web software has the ability to be interactive by hovering over each data point to evaluate what each point on the map represents. The data is drawn from the WPA database on Project Gutenberg converted into a .CSV file from the state of Alabama. The database would have to be followed to upload and there are only four different colors of the map background. To embed this map, I had to save to my personal Dropbox account and generate the code, using shortcode and iframe, I was able to get the map onto this post. Due to the changes and upgrades in wordpress, must change the shortcode format to as an example: iframe width=”100%” height=”480″ src=”http://player.vimeo.com/video/3261363″ with the brackets and replacing the url with your current site that you want to embed. You cannot put an http on a https site! These two maps show the capability of the open source software of this website, to timeline additions, to arc 3d points of travel, and to size of the data points.

Sources for this post include the the database for the Alabama WPA interviews into longitude and latitude values by Stephen Robertson, the website Kepler.gl, and iframe plug in open source for wordpress..

Categories
Software Tools Tools

Voyant Tools

Voyant Tools is a website of analytical free software that analyzes textual sources.  When I first worked on this exercise of word cloud creation, graphing of prominent words, context, and placement among different documents in the corpus of WPA slave narratives, I was enamored with the ease of word cloud creation. Who invented this software, I wondered? Please see his Memoriam, Stéfan Sinclair, In Memoriam – CSDH / SCHN (csdh-schn.org). Voyant tools for the general user are best done with a stepwise instructional guide and exercise. The device can take you down multiple avenues of research in texts and context. For my digital humanities course, the training was relatively straightforward but somewhat time intensive. To analyze the WPA slave narratives, creating cirrus clouds was the first step to this software. The multi-window tools are interactive; clicking on the primary word will then populate trends, context, and data graphs for the word within the documents of the corpus of work. From the WPA documents from different states and prominent words, like mammy, slaves, and war,  I was able to see the regionalization of language. Some of the results were surprising, like the word, war, Kentucky interviews found to be actually “were” just written as it was said. Mammy was more prominent in Oklahoma than in Kentucky and Maryland. To figure out why, you can go into the reader section and context to see that most interviewed had moved there from the deep south. Some of the documents have significantly more text and words than others; I wondered if that impacts the overall results compared to the different states and how to control for varying word counts of the files. For the new user, spend time reviewing the guide, pick one document or two to learn the tool’s functionality, and less chance of stalling or javascript errors. 

Voyant Tools (voyant-tools.org)

Sources: About this Collection  |  Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1938  |  Digital Collections  |  Library of Congress (loc.gov),

css.php