Uta Hinrichs, Trading Consequences
Trading Consequences: Utilizing Information Visualization to Facilitate Research Processes in Environmental History
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.
Trading Consequences is a wonderful and rich resource. I wrote a bit about the project to introduce it to the readers of ProfHacker at the Chronicle of Higher Education (http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/exploring-trading-consequences/56415) back in April and look forward to use discussing it at the workshop!
Dear Uta,
congratulations to your fascinating project of Trading Consequences. Anna and I agree with Konrad that it is a great resource. Especially in view of our Tuebingen project which not only investigates transnational flows of media news but also those of goods. Our interest focuses chiefly on items designed for the use of the so-called elegant world. Just for fun I tested a search for “cashmere shawls” this morning.
Of course the results would be more valuable to us if the sources were not confined to English data, but included other languages (in our case German, Russian, Hungarian, and Czech) as well. Maybe we should discuss the possibilities of overcoming language barriers while dealing with transnational history tools?
Rolf
Hi Uta,
This is an amazing resource, I’m so pleased I have been introduced to it. I’ve already told at least five people about it today!
Just a quick question – I was wondering if you could point to any examples of work that have come directly from the database? Ie. any articles or projects that have been based (even partly) on using the database to answer historical questions? If you had time to point to any, it would be interesting to see how the materials have been used.
Looking forward to hearing more about it on Monday,
Georgina