36 Matching Annotations
  1. Feb 2023
    1. Archivists make a useful distinction between an object intentionally created, as an end in itself, and an object that is a by-product of human activities, the object typically functioning instrumentally as a means or tool.

      An example of something created as an end itself would be something like a painting. Rather, a by-product would be a car, for example.

    2. Economy must also be considered. There are the obvious up-front costs of computer hardware and software, plus maintenance costs as these break or become obsolete.

      I think that long-term costs can be reduced if a higher quality product is invested in in the beginning.

    3. Before a project begins to produce and publish data content, the project must have an infrastructure that will support its production and publishing.

      This makes sense, as the team would need to know if the project is even possible. On top of that, the team would also need to know how the data would be presented.

    1. What is Digital History?

      Digital history to me is an account of history that is recorded in a digital space/forum. It oftentimes looks at the deeper meanings to historical events both big and small.

    2. Digital history projects proceeded froma core historical question, such as what is the social history of the American CivilWar, how do local communities resist something like racial segregation, how cana student-created digital archive of Victoria’s early history allow for dynamicteaching and learning, or, how do urban historians map the knowledge claims ofa dynamic metropolis?

      I believe that that is the uniqueness of the digital humanities. It doesn't only look at the issue at hand but looks to face the deeper truth to it.

    3. however, they have foundthat without well-defined examples of digital scholarship, established best prac-tices, and, especially, clear standards of review for tenure, few scholars have fullyengaged with the digital medium.

      I see how that can be a problem, scholars would probably see digital endeavors as foreign and hence be hesitant to pursue it.

  2. Jan 2023
    1. This defining DH moment corresponds with increasing recognition of work being done by digital humanists already committed to diverse minority communities and, therefore, it goes beyond questions of building vs interpreting, beyond who’s in and who’s out. One can “hack or yack” all one wants, but if either is divorced from a real-time community, then what use is it?

      I believe that this is a good way to do digital humanities; since everyone belongs to a community whether they realize it or not. I think that this is an impactful way of doing DH since it will specifically target those involved in the respective communities.

    2. When I discuss digital alchemy I am thinking of the ways that women of color, Black women in particular, transform everyday digital media into valuable social justice media magic that recodes failed dominant scripts.

      This has been extremely prevalent over the last years with the #BlackLivesMatter movement, and also the #MeToo movement.

    3. It is not a workshoppable, immediately-produced, immediately-reproducible, lightning-fast-results form of activism, but it is nevertheless one attempt at redressing a social inequality and generating positive social change

      I completely agree with this viewpoint. Since getting started in digital humanities I have realized how long it may take to put a project together, and still market your project so that it can help the groups you want to help. In the end, however, I believe that it can be just as impactful as another form of activism.

  3. Nov 2022
    1. Finally, the globe technologies add a realism and a "wow" factor that is not present in the 2-D technologies.  Their downside is that they require the installation of either a separate application or a browser plug-in to be viewed, unlike the 2-D maps that are viewable in standard web browsers.

      I also agree here, since many websites do not use 3D maps. But, here I can see why, since many users would not be able to access it properly. I think the globes should be utilized in a setting where the information is to be presented to a small group of people, for example, within a workplace where the necessary plug-in could already be provided on the office's computers.

    2. Animated web maps

      From what I understand, animated web maps should be used with data that changes over time, so the map can show these changes. It is especially useful if the map is also interactive meaning, in this example, that the user would be able to manipulate the years.

    3. While it's tempting to think that Internet-based maps are preferable to paper maps in every way, that's certainly not the case. Perhaps the most obvious disadvantage of Internet-based maps is that they require access to the Internet

      It is very easy to think that everything that is online is better, but in some instances they are not. Maps being online can be a disadvantage if someone has to work offline, or if people in the area do not have a stable access to Internet connection. I do, however, think in most cases that Internet -based maps are better since they ae more durable and easier to access.

    1. Funding bodies will often not understand or allow this. In some cases there is the pressure to develop proprietary software solutions.

      I think the reason for this is because open source can be easily replicated and shared by anyone, and to anyone. Since funding bodies are investing their money, they will feel more secure if a proprietary (closed source) solution is used.

    2. Crucially, though, digital archives can move in and out of this darkness, they can be kept alive and represented.

      What I understand from this is, for example, that since archives may be found on an outdated website, that if the website is "revamped", then those archives will longer be "dark".

    3. Another challenge of digital archives refers to the competing claims of access and preservation. Should an archive emphasize the widest range of materials possible? Or should it make sure that a smaller collection is properly documented, annotated, and made accessible to non-specialists?

      In my opinion, archives should focus on more specific subject matter. This allows for easier understandability for other people. I think that by focusing on a smaller collection, that the works will be better documented as opposed to a much larger collection.

    1. but I think you want to have at least in the hundreds if not a minimum of 1,000 documents in your corpus.

      This is understandable, since topic modeling is somewhat supposed to make things easier. Having to go through topic modeling for a small batch of work could sometimes prove more work than if you would have done it yourself.

    2. How does it work?

      To do topic modeling, you would need to refine the information by removing stopwords etc. Once this is done, data can be modelled through any channel you like even Python.

    3. What, then, is a topic?

      A topic is a group of related ideas. So, it would consist of words that fall under a certain category. For example, "pants, vest, and t-shirt" would belong to the same topic.

  4. Oct 2022
    1. The XSLT namespace specifies the version of the XSLT rules to which the stylesheet conforms. The latest version is correctly cited as:

      I think this acts like a special website-converter for XML documents. XML documents will not be able to show, though, on the older XSLT namespace.

    1. EAD makes use of a tag structure that identifies the components of a document. Each component or part is identified, and noted through the encoding. Because EAD is an application of XML, EAD utilizes the concepts of tags, elements, and attributes for encoding text.

      From my understanding, EAD is used only for archival files, and uses the components mentioned before.

    1. What is a Tag?

      Tags must be correctly spelled and in the right position for them to work. A combination of tags cannot be used. This means that beginning tags cannot be used with empty tags or closing tags.

    1. Google has scanned more than 30 million books, as of April 2013, and continues to scan more. Compared to the estimated 130 million books ever published, this is a large part of the written human record. But of course, this is neither exhaustive nor are books the only medium of print publication there is,

      This is an astonishing fact. This shows that we may sometimes miss out on vital information due to it not being available/easily accessible digitally.

    2. The first consequence of the macroanalytic paradigm in the humanities, where hundreds or even thousands of texts are analyzed at a time, is that instead of operating on the level of literary forms and conventions, of semantics and context, we operate with quantitative measures of low-level features, on the basis of statistics and probabilities.

      I understand how that can be problematic. It can lead to less sophisticated data since we are not focusing on specific ideas and topics. I do think, however, that it has the potential to be useful since it can provide statistical support to data.

    3. Big data is a term describing the storage and analysis of large and or complex data sets using a series of techniques

      Upon hearing this description, I understand why it is useful to so many industries. It involves the main ideas surrounding a particular topic. In my opinion, it is much easier to dissect big data as there are many routes that can be taken as compared to when analyzing a more specific topic.

    1. Finally, we may even need new kinds of data specifications, because the currently existing standards for describing time and space, for example, are actually really inadequate for our needs. To give one example, many standards for specifying dates require time calculated down to the exact day, and sometimes even the minute or second. But humanists tend to deal in words like circa, spans of time, or things like “before” or “after” this event.

      This also deals with inadequate data which we have to deal with. Not having data specifications can affect the accuracy of our research.

    2. I’ve been struck by how often it seems that what the scholar really needs is data-modeling advice

      I understand how it can be difficult to model datasets especially as a novel humanist. There are simply not enough and not enough variety of models to use. This can cause problems as we will not be able to represent the data in a precise way.

    3. And I would argue that the notion of reproducible research in the humanities just doesn’t have much currency, the way it does in the sciences, because humanists tend to believe that the scholar’s own subject position is inextricably linked to the scholarship she produces.

      I agree, because each person has an individual view and that may affect the way and manner in which data is presented.

    1. Administrative metadata

      I think administrative metadata is the admin side of things, as the name implies. It will be, for example, who a google document was shared with.

    2. Structural metadata

      From my understanding, this would be like a 'table of contents'. Where the information about the order of information is stored.

    3. Descriptive metadata describesa resource for purposes such asdiscovery and identification

      An example of this would be the author's name attached to an article.

    1. addressing the global distribution of discourse and materials:

      In my opinion, this is the most important characteristic. I think this way, because without a global interaction when researching and publishing, we end up with a one-sided view that may not represent all people.

    2. This is where we need allies–libraries in particular–as partners in modelling, preserving, and making available this scholarship.

      I also believe that we need allies. Preservation of work is crucial when doing research, especially groundbreaking and innovative research.

    3. What we think we will build and what we build are not the same thing

      I understand this in a personal way. To me, it means that what/who you are trying to be does not necessarily correlate to how everyone else perceives you.

  5. Sep 2022
    1. When she Googles “black girls,” she finds instead HotBlackPussy.com

      I relate to this statement so much. When searching for certain articles online, I tend to get prejudicial results that are only vaguely related to what I searched for. The authors of these articles tended to be white, American males. I would normally find the works of authors of color further down the page that speak exactly on what I searched for initially.

    2. Of course, what is felt as a disruption changes depending on the social and political position occupied by a given person.

      This is true throughout all things in life. For example, not having a proper meal at night may simply be a dietary choice for some, while it is an unwilling daily occurrence for others.

    3. It would be enough if search simply made the internet inhospitable to African-American women, but Noble makes a compelling case that pervasive racism online inflames racist violence IRL.

      I completely agree with this statement. When people see certain things on the media, they normally believe that this behavior/point of view is ok; especially if what they see already lines up with their beliefs and values. They feel security, in a sense that other people think the same as them, and act brazenly as a result.