Data and Digitization - Caden

Chapters 2 and 3 of The Digital Humanities Coursebook, “Data Modeling Use” and “Digitization,” extend my understanding of Digital Humanities by demonstrating that DH is not just representing humanities subjects in digital environments but also presenting information in a way that allows for recognizing patterns and ways of representation that would otherwise remain undiscovered. Data modeling practices demonstrated in chapter 2 allow for structuring information in a way that would enable its effective use by digital platforms, while digitization discussed in chapter 3 enables transforming physical or non-digital information into a digital format.

My chosen project, American Panorama, created by the University of Richmond’s Digital Scholarship Lab, perfectly demonstrates the concepts discussed in both chapters 2 and 3. The project includes several historical timelines visualized on maps displaying migrations, elections, slavery, redlining, and land access in American history with intuitive and extreme detail. For instance, the Mapping Inequality feature allows exploring racially restricted areas visualized with remarkable precision on the map of the United States at different dates, learning about the history of redlining practices, and downloading data to investigate further.

From the perspective of chapter 2, American Panorama demonstrates the data modeling concept because historical information presented in the project is organized and structured in a particular way to be visualized on maps or timelines. In other words, information is presented as data that can be used for analytical purposes or displaying patterns in time or space. For instance, instead of reading about the history of a certain neighborhood, the user can explore it on a map and visualize the changes over time. Furthermore, the project allows downloading the data, which suggests that the information was organized in a structured way to be used for further analysis purposes.

The concepts discussed in chapter 3 are also well presented in the American Panorama project. The project is entirely about digitizing historical data and sources, which requires understanding how to represent the information in a digital environment. Also, DH projects such as American Panorama demonstrate that digitization is not only about scanning existing sources or books and making them available online but also transforming data into a digital format in order to enhance its analytical potential. For instance, historical data on redlining that was represented in a non-digital form prior to the creation of the project became a part of a digital project, thus enabling its analytical potential and visualizing it with the help of maps and timelines.

Link to Website: https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/

Foreign Born Population Map: https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/foreignborn/#decade=2020