Digital Humanities

This is a selection of tools you can use to do Digital Humanities research. This list prioritizes free and easy to use tools (no coding required!) but please reach out the to Library if you are looking for more advanced options or if you are interested in methods not included below. 

Some general resources:

• "How did they make that?" by Miriam Posner. Posner reverse engineers a few DH projects to show how they are made and what tools they use. 
• DH Toychest: Digital Humanities Tools by Alan Liu. Liu curates lists of DH tools (and more!)
• Programming Historian, beginner-friendly technology tutorials aimed at humanities subjects and contexts
• Open source, experimental, and tiny tools roundup by Everest Pipkin. A list of small, free, experimental tools for building games, websites, and interactive projects.

The following tools are useful if you are primarily working with texts:

• Voyant, a web-based tool to create word clouds, calculate word frequencies, generate topic models, and more.
  Tutorial from Voyant Tools: Thinking-Through Voyant.
• AntConc, software for finding word frequency patterns or n-grams in a text corpus.
  Tutorial from Programming History: Corpus Analysis with Antconc.
• Hypothesis, a web-based collaborative annotating tool.
• Transkribus Lite, a web-based tool to transcribe historical documents. This free version is slightly more limited than their main software.

The Data-Sitters Club is great resource about using text analysis to explore The Baby-Sitters Club books. Written conversationally, it is a good way to explore what can be done with text analysis.

If you are looking to integrate audio into your research these tool could be useful:

• Audacity, an audio editor and recorder.
  Tutorial from Programming Historian: Editing Audio with Audacity.
• Soundcite, a tool to integrate sound clips into digital text-based stories. 
• Adobe Premiere Rush, a downloadable app (iOS, android, and computer) to record, edit, and export videos. Free and paid versions available. 
  Tutorial from Penn State: Adobe Premiere Rush Tutorials 

"How to Listen to a Podcast for Class" by Abby Mullen is a good overview for listening to any audio for a class or for research. 

"Podcasting the Ancient Greek and Roman World" by Sabrina C. Higgins, Chelsea Gardner, and Melissa Funke is a sample podcast-creation assignment 

If you have location data, these mapping tools can help you visualize your materials:

• StoryMap JS, create interactive stories around locations on a maps. Maps can stand on their own or be embedded onto webpages.
  Tutorial from Programming Historian: Displaying a Georeferenced Map in KnightLab’s StoryMap JS (adding historical maps to your project).
• Palladio, upload spreadsheets with geospatial data to create maps. Palladio can also visualize networks.
  Tutorial from Matthew Lincoln: Critical Data Visualization with Palladio.
• ArcGIS StoryMaps, integrate maps and essays and create "tours" of your material. A "public account" is the free version, which is slightly limited. 
  Tutorial from McMaster University Library: Introduction to ArcGIS StoryMaps.

Tools for image-focused research:

• Storiiies, annotate an image to create tours of the content that tell a story.
  Tutorial: Creating a Project in Storiiies
• Juxtapose, creates a slider to allow viewers to compare two similar images, either manually on as an animated .gif.
• StoryMapJS, the "gigapixel" tool allows you to create a story that allows you to annotate a high resolution image rather than a map.
• Juncture, create interactive visual essays that explore images. (This is a more advanced tool and may require more dedicated time to learn the tool.)

These tools can help you to tell stories interactively:

• TimelineJS, create visually rich interactive timelines powered by a Google Sheet, which can stand alone of be embedded on other sites.
  Tutorial from the Digital Humanities Center at Barnard: TimelineJS.
• Twine, create non-linear (like Chose Your Own Adevnture) stories, can also be used to make simple games.
  Tutorial from Programming Historian: How to Create Interactive Text Games Using Twine.
• Google Sites, a free website builder. 
  Tutorial: Google Sites Tutorial

These are more general tools if you are working with datasets:

• OpenRefine, a tool for managing, tidying, and normalizing datasets. Very useful when working with large amounts of data. 
  Tutorial from Programming Historian: Cleaning Data with OpenRefine.
• Tableau Public, data visualization software to make a variety of charts and graphs, can also make maps.
  Tutorial from Sherman Centre for Digital Scholarship: Data Visualization with Tableau.
• Gephi, software to visualize networks and relationships in datasets.
• Flourish, a web-based data visualization tool. 
  Tutorial from Miriam Posner: Getting Started with Flourish
   

VisDepot: An Introductory Resource for Data Visualization is a great repository of tools, concepts and tutorials for data visualizations.

Did you know the Library has its own 3D printer? Reach out to Tim Kail in the Library if you are interested in trying it out. The following tools can help you design objects to print, but also read the LibGuide on 3D printing which goes more in depth. (This will be published soon!) The "Humanities Data" page on this guide also provides sources of 3D models from museums and cultural heritage organizations that could be printed.

• Tinkercad, a free web tool to build and edit 3D files
• Blender, free software to edit 3D files. Tinkercad is not able to open particularly large or complex files, so this is a useful alternative.

"Visualizing and Materializing Objects: 3D Printed Coins Assignment" by Christine L. Johnston, Alan Wheeler, Alexis Nunn, and Erin Escobar is a sample in-class exercise using 3D printed objects