Distance Reading Wiki

From Brock University's Digital Humanities Compendium

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	Crane [http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march06/crane/03crane.html "What Do You Do with a Million Books"]		Crane [http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march06/crane/03crane.html "What Do You Do with a Million Books"]
-	Moretti [http://www.mat.ucsb.edu/~g.legrady/academic/courses/09w259/Moretti_graphs.pdf Graphs, Maps, Trees]	+	Moretti [http://www.mat.ucsb.edu/~g.legrady/academic/courses/09w259/Moretti_graphs.pdf Graphs, Maps, Trees] **In case some of you can't find the text, these articles are similar.
	== Distance Reading Discussion Questions ==		== Distance Reading Discussion Questions ==

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Revision as of 18:13, 2 October 2011

Distance Reading Articles

Cohen "Analyzing Literature by Words and Numbers"

Cohen "In 500 Billion Words..."

Crane "What Do You Do with a Million Books"

Moretti Graphs, Maps, Trees **In case some of you can't find the text, these articles are similar.

Distance Reading Discussion Questions

Discussion Question 1:

To start out this week's debate we thought we'd begin with a couple of general questions. With the advent of the digital environment a much larger number of texts and resources have been made available. Practically speaking, is there a point at which there is simply too much available to be able to sort through - in other words, is there ever a point in which there is so much information, or the scale of it is so large, that it in fact impedes effective research?

Discussion Question 2:

While the digital environment has given way to a range of new and useful means of textual analysis how does a statistical critique of literature and resources fit within traditional approaches? Do the possibilities for digital texts surpass or fall short of traditional approaches to printed materials?

Distance Reading Responses

     ** Let it Begin **

Well I'll kick things off this week. I'll start by addressing the first question.

The massive catalogues of books will radically change acceptable practices within history. I have no doubt of this. Where a theory could be proposed off the reading of 30 books before it might require 300 now to hold the same weight. While this seems ludicrous, I don't think it will amount to a whole lot more work for the historian in the long run. This of course can only be the case if we refine our methods of research and adapt. New methods to pull out relevant points and skim over the useless bits must be developed hand in hand with the massive catalogues of digitized books. And of course there are other aspects that must be taken into account. Digital archivists will be very important in this endeavour.

So I'll say no. I don't think that the scale of information will necessarily impede research. It COULD, but I dont think it has to.

RiotousRyan

I'll go next... I think the first question is very interesting. I can understand how millions and millions of books at one's disposal could be seen as problematic for research, with just the sheer volume of material one would have to go through. I think what is important to keep in mind though is that as these digital libraries grow, evolve and change, so too will the tools used to search in them. I think with effective search tools, a library of millions of digital books will be kept fairly manageable, as only certain books would be brought forward from a search, or only sections of an article to be examined rather than the entire thing. Some of these techniques are addressed in the Crane article. I know this opens the questions of how searches are structured, how items are catalogued or tagged, etc. but those are things that require their own examination altogether, and aren't issues I think I could address adequately in this space. The fact of the matter is, the same amount of material is still out there regardless if it is digitized or not; digitizing it just makes it more easily available to more people. I think Cohen's "Analyzing Literature..." article is correct when it states that digital research will offer a new kind of comprehensiveness that previous research was lacking. As for the second question, I think the statistical analysis of literature can be used as a tool within traditional approaches, such as the example in the Cohen article of the work done on Victorian mindsets towards progress and science. No one is forcing anyone to use the digital data that is being made available; it is a choice of the researcher if they would like to use digital resources on their research or not. In the Victorian example, digital tools provided some information that would've been very difficult to gather otherwise. The same article also states, however, that these tools aren't just tools but are changing the kinds of questions being asked by humanists. I don't necessarily feel that is a bad thing, though - it is opening another field of inquiry. Just because a new field opens does not mean that another, more traditional one has to close. Melanie