A manifesto for the small in Big Data and Digital Humanities – in questions (mainly)

Why do Data have to big Big?

What is the benefit of being big?

And when does big become big?

Where does big data start?

Can small data be beautiful?

How to get the best out of both worlds – big and small?

Who owns Big Data (intellectually)?

Is “cleaning” data an act of interpretation and hermeneutics?

Would it make sense to replace big by complex?

Is big data an elegant way of shying away from complexity?

Is big data flat – loosing edges, complexities

How to bring in our strenghts (historians, that is) trained as close readers into big data (kritische Haltung)?

Where is the competence of historians – same competences but bring them from analogue to digital?

You have the data – but we have the questions, ok?

Please let us in – or are we (historians) just the guys who annoy because we ask questions and seek Komplexitätssteigerung?

A problem of sources in transnational histories 

A high number of our sources are bound to national institutions (archives, national libraries). Could the maps and visualisations we have in mind allow us to de-centre or de-nationalise the nature of sources? A great example is the newspaper collection of the Austrian National Library in Vienna. However, as long as these collections remain bound to either a state (Habsburg mainly or a single language) we cannot de-centre or de-nationalise the objects of our studies. The visualisastion and mapping of events along such newspapers would only reinforce the existing dominance of national frameworks.

Anna Annieva, Bernhard Struck, Martin Stark, Stefan Nygard

Uta Hinrichs

ABSTRACT 

The digitisation of historic records has started to change the way in which historic research is being conducted and what kind of research questions can be asked. Traditional research approaches in history may involve an in-depth study (close reading) of a small number of documents. In contrast, digitisation, in combination with computational analysis approaches such as text mining, provides the foundation for a broader perspective on the course of history based on hundreds and thousands of historic records, so called “distant reading”.

However, making this vast and rich data available is not enough. We need tools that can facilitate targeted and open-ended exploration of this data and help to discover and decipher trends. As part of Trading Consequences (1), a project that was funded through Digging into Data (2), we have explored how information visualization can be used to help environmental historians explore large collections of historic records along different perspectives such as geographic location, time, and context. In this presentation we will provide an outline of the project and the visualization tools that were designed as part of it. Based on our lessons learned, we discuss the potential impact of information visualization in this context.

Uta Hinrichs is a Research Fellow at the University of St Andrews’ Human Computer Interaction group (SACHI). Her research focuses on information visualization and interaction design. In particular, she is interested in how to make cultural collections accessible and explorable to domain experts as well as the general public. Uta holds a PhD in Computer Science with a specialization in Computational Media Design from the InnoVis Group at the University of Calgary in Canada.

1 http://tradingconsequences.blogs.edina.ac.uk/ 

2 http://www.diggingintodata.org/

Martin Stark & Michael Kronenwett (University of Trier & Hamburg)

The aim of this workshop is to demonstrate how a visual network research approach can support and enhance research in transnational, global and spatial history. The digital tool for this workshop will be the software VennMaker. This software supports the triangulation of qualitative, participatory and quantitative methods and can be used as a heuristic tool to back up the historical research process. VennMaker was developed by a trans-disciplinary team, including historians and geographers. The software aims to make the process of coding, visualizing and analyzing social networks simpler and faster. While traditional software requires users to enter relational data in a database before they are able to produce network visualization, VennMaker generates this data while the researcher draws nodes and creates a network map. Prefabricated data matrices are thus no longer necessary. In this way, the program inverts the process of data collection and can easily be used by historians and other scholars lacking training in the social sciences. Special features of VennMaker allow the visual exploration and analysis of spatial patterns, e.g. via expressing geographical distances by concentric circles, using digital maps to underlay the network visualisations or by adding historical maps from external sources. This workshop is appropriate for 90 or 120 minutes. There are no prerequisite skill requirements for participation. The participants should bring their own laptop with the latest java version, the software will be provided. The participants will learn how to use the software VennMaker (http://www.vennmaker.com) to perform a visual orientated research on spatial networks.

Biographical note

Martin Stark received his Magister Artium in Social- and Economic History in 2003 at the University of Hamburg. From 2005-2011 he was junior researcher at the research cluster “Societal Dependencies and Social Networks” at the University of Trier. In July 2012 he finished his dissertation on “Social embeddedness of a rural credit market in the 19th Century”. Since August 2012 he´s working as the scientific coordinator for a research initiative on “Networkdynamics and Networked Governance” at the University of Hamburg. He is one of the main developers of the Software VennMaker.

Michael Kronenwett was from 2008 – 2013 a research assistant at the research cluster “Societal Dependencies and Social Networks” at the University of Trier. Since 2014 he is a research assistant at the Research Centre for Europe at the University of Trier and the coordinator for the VennMaker Hist plugin development. He is also one of the main developers of the Software VennMaker.

VennMaker (http://www.vennmaker.com/en/ 80€) – network mapping software