Category: Text Searching/Guest Lecture

Modern-age digital searching has certainly revolutionized the way that we are able to gather and process information, largely by making it easier and quicker to access what we are looking for. The formation of databases and keyword/text searching, at least in my personal experience, has made accessing harder-to-find information much easier as well. Within anthropology, certain areas of research or kinds of data can be extremely niched, and text searching within databases has made this less commonly requested information much more readily available. On a non-academic basis, keyword searching has also become almost a secondary action in daily life- going to google a single word or phrase in order to quickly gather some answer to any range of questions.

            I also believe that, with the way which data is digitized, and information is thus much more accessible for consumption by a much broader and varied audience, many things about digital media could lend a hand in social shifts, especially within ways that more trivial and rudimentary information is consumed by the general public, and how specific data can be accessed by people with specific interest. The sharing of this data will also, no doubt, continue to make social changes, primarily in increasing the equality within which information is gathered, and broadening the opportunity for education across the world, given the (relative) ease of access to internet and these digital libraries.

            Based on the popularity of digital media as well, I think that not only are the digital projects and exhibits becoming more popular, but much more important and impactful than they were 10 years ago. With the rise in popularity of technology, and the cultural influence that it’s had so far, a lot goes to show the impact that this has had on society. If a question is asked, most commonly the internet, and thus the increasing variety of digital libraries and databased, are there to answer this question. In this way, digital projects and exhibits of every kind gain a much higher viewing rate than the same answer or project would be if displayed in physical text format. Initially this was because the internet was easier and quicker to access than the physical material information itself, but the rise in the use of digital media has shifted us toward a major social change, in which there is much less desire or need for physical manifestations of information.

            In this way, I think we lose something very meaningful in return for ease and speed in gaining the answers we need and so desire from a database. Information born digital has many perks and quailities which make it a more desirable format, but digital information loses context, loses the meaning with which many older texts were composed, and loses the soul of the information itself- in turn with a risk of data being largely misconstrued.

            Digital media has certainly changed the academia and other uses for good, but there is still something incredibly valuable about finding the physical information itself.

Bibliography

Guidone, Tony. Sept 9, 2019. Guest Lecture on Digital Databases, Keyword Searching, and Information Accessibility.

This Monday, our class had the opportunity to receive a guest lecture from Tony Guidone, a graduate student at George Mason University composing research on the cultural impacts of international trade in Salem, Massachusetts. In his presentation, Guidone challenged our perspectives on what can be considered a primary source, introduced challenges posed by the digitization of these sources, and provided the class with useful methods for keyword searching in these documents.

Guidone opened his presentation by asking our class for a definition of a primary source, to which one of my classmates responded: an original source. Our speaker agreed and proceeded to pass around a number of textual primary sources, mostly comprised of newspapers. Once the papers had made their way around the class, Guidone then drew out two coins from his bag and explained that although texts serve as useful primary sources, artifacts such as coins also serve as primary sources and can provide different insights into the lives of individuals living at a particular time. I found this subversion of expectations to be very powerful. Many students, including myself, appeared to have been exposed to textual primary sources but had not considered the implications of examining other artifacts such as coins.

After sharing this insight with the class, Guidone then placed the two coins under the classroom’s projector and asked us to identify any differences between the two coins. Many of us noted that the two coins were colored differently, and Guidone responded by informing us that the difference in color was the result of the materials that composed the coins. He stated that the coin produced in 1943 was actually composed of a lighter substance than the coin produced in 1940 due to metal being rationed during the Second World War. Guidone went on to explain questions that experts consider about the differences between the two coins: How would an average citizen come to think about their government based on the quality of the coins that it produced? He also stated that these questions would be lost on someone examining a digitized image of these two coins.

Prior to Guidone’s lecture, our class was asked to read Ian Milligan’s essay, Illusionary Order: Online Databases, Optical Character Recognition, and Canadian History, 1997-2010. Here, he speaks on these types of issues with respect to the limitations of OCR software, stating: We can see an accuracy rate in the 40 per cent ballpark… perhaps even more than half of the information may be missed through keyword searching. Just as the weight of Guidone’s coins were lost on his audience, so are many possible primary sources for researchers. [enf_note]Ian Milligan, Illusionary Order: Online Databases, Optical Character Recognition, and Canadian History, 1997-2010, The Canadian Historical Review Volume 94 Number 4, December 2013[/enf_note]

Guidone ended his lecture by demonstrating a keyword search. Searching for the keyword ‘Asia’ in 17th century newspapers yielded few results. However, searching for the keyword ‘East’ garnered far more. He left us with a reminder that Keyword searching involves considering the vocabulary used by people living at a particular time and not our own vernacular.

Text searching has come a long way when it comes to doing something scholarly such as a research for a paper or something simplistic such as finding out a recipe to make cheesecake without eggs. Tony Guidone’s presentation had gave me insight to how I can change the way I conduct my text search. Tony’s presentation had showed me that by searching for keywords in long bodies of text that it speeds up the acquisition of key information. Personally, it changed the way I interacted with information in the sense that it allowed me to skim over articles and webpages faster; however, Tony also mentioned how not everything is digitized and that it is important to understand this notion because there will be times where we will have to apply that skill of text searching to the real world.

The idea of digital projects making social change is a comprehensive argument that I side with because I do feel like that it can make significant social change. I say this, because digital projects have the ability to change what we know about the past and how we can apply it to our future and the present. Digital projects have the unique ability to give us this never before seen perspective that we potentially did not have in the past. These projects can not only change the way we look at history but also give fresh idea to old technology that we can now study and replicate to modernize it for the current generation.

Digital media as a whole has benefits and cost to being used. Some of the benefits being that digital media gives us this fresh perspective to look into history and judge through different lenses. A cost to using digital media is that not everyone can use it to conduct text searches; As Ian Milligan stated, “In short, this means that while an end-user can view the image file, there is no text layer that would allow one to simply copy and paste textual characters.” ¹ This statement goes to show that not everyone can use it to their benefit which can be a detriment to their research if they need to use that source.

Due to the increase of online databases and collections of newspaper articles and other artifacts, resources have never been easier to find. In fact, the ease of using databases allow sources to be accessed from all over the world. However, because of how easy it is to find and view these sources, researchers tend to take for granted the actual value of them.

During Tony Guidone’s presentation ¹, he brought in several artifacts including a German coin and several newspaper articles from the past. He told us that the way that we interact with these coins or papers in person are different than how we would perceive them online.

Being able to actually see the details of a coin, the dirt, the corrosion, the intricacy of the design, is different than seeing a mere picture of it on the internet. Holding the artifact in one’s hand allows a greater connection to the history behind the coin. Questions can cross one’s mind as to where it has been and who this coin has encountered before. The novelty of this item just simply isn’t the same when seen online through a picture.

Likewise, the newspapers that were brought in allowed the class to get a greater feel of what was going on at the time. In an online data base, doing a simple key word search can highlight the paragraph that needs to be read while allowing the researcher to ignore everything else in the paper. Seeing a newspaper from the early to mid 20th century brings about a sense of nostalgia for the older eras. There were campaigns talking about rationing for the war and there was also an ad for a Model T² one of the first affordable wide production cars in America. Being able to see small things like ads or rationing campaigns really allows the researcher to connect with the newspaper more.

Although seeing an artifact or other source in person is more meaningful, the practicality of being able to use sources outside of the web is low. According to Ian Milligan in an article from Project Muse ³ the increase of the citations of newspaper articles has increased dramatically since the rise of online newspaper databases. Due to this fact, it is easy to see that accessing sources online can be more practical albeit less of an experience.

Overall, digital projects can create social change by allowing information to be viewed and processed anywhere in the world. They allow artifacts to be known to not only the country it originated from, but in hundreds of other countries as well. Information can be spread, and even though some of the novelty for the item can be lost online, that does not diminish the importance of the information it displays.

Works Cited:

History.com Editors. (2010, April 26). Model T. Retrieved from https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/model-t

George Mason University Central Authentication Service (CAS). (n.d.). Retrieved from https://muse-jhu-edu.mutex.gmu.edu/article/527016

In Tony Guidone’s experience as a historian, he has examined a plethora of different primary sources and artifacts of varying degrees of significance and rarity. However, in the framework of the digital humanities, every primary source has a series of values and obstacles that accompany the digitization of an artifact.

The positives of digitization are seemingly obvious. Ideas of distance reading and keyword searching go back decades, but the ease of searching a digital source easily trumps the hassle associated with scanning through text using a microfilm reader¹. Nowadays, the ease of scanning through hundreds of pages in the matter of seconds by searching for a keyword, is truly valuable. This has positively shifted my interaction with academic sources, as I can insure the sources I utilize in my research or scholarship will truly be helpful. Additionally, it is much easier to formulate effective arguments that are supported by credible sources, since those sources are easier to find.

Furthermore, the digital nature of modern historical projects allows them to inflict a greater amount of social change. In previous years, one may not hear about the Enslaved Children of George Mason project, unless they are directly involved. The digital nature of this project allows it to collect a great deal of data about George Mason’s legacy, and presents it in a way that is easily accessible to the general public².

Although, the digital nature of a source may impede one’s understanding of important context. As noted in the presentation, a photograph of a coin may not account for the texture of said coin, the weight, craftsmanship, or quality. Such factors may enhance one’s understanding of a period in history and allow for new insight. While this information can be included in detailed captions, it still may fall short of holding the artifact in one’s hand.

Ultimately, there are a variety of positives and negatives associated with the digital nature of certain history projects and exhibits. In total, the emergence of keyword searching and distance reading is an invaluable gift, as is the ability to spread information via social media. Though some elements of history may be more likely to be ignored, individuals are able to overcome these obstacles as curious scholars.

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The idea of text searching has been a recent phenomenon within digital media. Before text searching, it could take hours to search through an article or database. With the benefit of text search, the user is able to enter a word or phrase and if that word or topic is within the database or article then it will be pulled up. For example in the database Enslaved Children of George Mason, the user can search any topic and if that topic or item is in the database then it will be pulled up. For example, in this database I searched Virginia and the database brought up 9 different articles discussing Virginia, such as the Trial Bookfor Colony of Virginia. The concept of text search has significantly made it easier to research a topic for school or work and turn hours into minutes while searching for a topic. Also, within dissertations, which are extensive, systematic data sets are able to be compare large amounts of information quickly.^[1]

Digital Projects can create significant social change. The interesting thing about digital media is that it can be shared all around the world with many people. Many different projects can lead to social change. For example, charities and organizations can use the new digital technology to connect people and make change. On History pin ^[2]the creators can use this digital project to create communities and bring social change about topics tied to certain areas.

While digital media is an awesome and amazing tool to use, it has its problems. First, there are certain abilities lost when using digital tools. The ability to hold and feel or smell items and artifacts is a problem that writes must juggle with when trying to share an idea. For example, when discussing coins from the World War II era, it is important to feel the coins because during this time period Germans did not put much metal into coins, so their coins almost felt face and plastic like. This is an important aspect that the writer would want the reader to know, but they can’t actually feel a coin through the computer. It is interesting also that newspapers and old paper artifacts would also want to be felt in order to understand paper fragility and creation during the past. 

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^[1]“George Mason University Central Authentication Service (CAS).” Central Authentication Service (CAS) – CAS – Central Authentication Service. Accessed September 15, 2019. https://muse-jhu-edu.mutex.gmu.edu/article/527016.

^[2]Historypin. Accessed September 15, 2019. https://www.historypin.org/en/.

The presentation provided to us by Tony Guidone was both informative and interesting as he showed us the different ways that online databases can store information for users. Earlier in history it was absolutely necessary to hang on to physical copies of information but now we have the ability to upload and browse different versions of documents online.

The expansion of online databases have allowed for a new form of searching for information and this is through key word searching. Key word searching allows a user to search for information with a consistent theme or genre specific to their research.

The ease of key word searching has allowed me to access and process information at a much higher rate. Similar to what Milligan says in his section regarding The Quantitative Impact of Newspaper Databases, the more resources that a researcher has, the more confident they will be when conducting a project ¹. This key word searching provides a researcher with the ability to see the sources for their topic on a broad spectrum but also it speeds up the process; projects that were conducted in traditional libraries will take longer than a project that uses different online databases.

These digital projects that we examined in our first week of class may not spark an immediate social change but there is potential. Digital projects have the ability to bring information to consumers in new and uncomfortable ways. To spark a social change there may need to be a sense of uneasiness to make the consumer desire to see change the way that the website designer does.

As easy as it is to use digital media nowadays, it does have its ups and downs. Digital media allows for online databases to store hundreds of thousands of units of information all on the same website. But having access to that much information can prove to be overwhelming to the consumer if they are not being specific enough to their research. A good resource tool for these online databases is topic modeling. Topic modeling allows a user to track their search topics over time to see how the quantitative data has shifted ².

I really enjoyed Tony Guidone’s presentation last week. It allowed me to gain a new perspective on digital history and how digital media may not always be the best resource for us to use. Text searching has certainly changed the way society engages with information, but not always for the better. When using text searching in research, we may be able to get said research done quicker and easier, but there is an added risk on missing out on vital information if we are relying solely on text searching and not reading thoroughly through the primary sources offered. However, in instances where text searching is used for non-research purposes it is a great tool to allow us to find information easily and quickly. This also encourages searching for answers to our questions as it is so easily accessible and easy to do with limited knowledge on the subject.

Tony focused a large part of his presentation on how digital projects can certainly benefit society, but can also allow some things to be lost after translating sources digitally. Despite what may be lost, digital media is still a great resource as it makes projects and research more easily accessible and attainable than they previously would have been. An example of this can be found in Ian Milligan’s article where he talks about the impacts of the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star being digitized. Before digitization most newspapers were cited around the same amount. However, after the Toronto Star was digitized, it was cited far more frequently than its non-digitized counterparts. ¹ Due to its digitization making it so easily accessible, other sources such as the Ottawa Citizen were being ignored, creating an unnecessary hierarchy of sources. Original meanings and context can also be lost due to digitization. One of the examples given in the presentation was that of German currency. During World War II, German coins started being made with a much cheaper metal than previously used. This is easily noticeable when holding a coin from before and after the war as the weight difference was significantly lighter in the cheaper coin, despite it appearing to be very similar online. ²

Obtaining information from a newspaper that is print compared to a newspaper than can be accessed online can provide a different experience. A print newspaper will give a person a more hands-on experience because they can feel the paper and possibly get more out of it. Reading a newspaper online could definitely be described as being more handy because searching key words or phrases has become easy. Tony’s presentation on how accessing information has changed over time is the reason behind these assumptions I have made. He brought in old newspaper dating all the way back to Salem in the 1600’s, which was very intriguing to see. Comparing that newspaper to the databases we have today has just proved how far society has come when it comes to digital technology.

Milligan’s hypothesis that more people will begin to read certain papers such as the Toronto Star because of databases is something that I can stand behind.¹ I know for a fact that when I have accessed databases, I have used sources that I’ve never heard of or thought to use before. Another thing that was interesting from Milligan’s article was the fact that people have been citing more newspaper because of databases. After reading that, I came to my own conclusion that databases put forth more sources than a simple google search would. They basically open a more widespread and academic door vs. googling for a topic that one is doing research on.

Tony spoke briefly on digital projects and I formed my own opinion that I do believe they can create social change. I remember in class looking at own digital project that was teaching people about incarceration, but it really engaged the person and made them actually learn about the facts and troubles with it. Incarceration among many other things are some of the biggest social issues in the world today, so having a digital project that engages people but also has that ‘wow’ factor to it will really help educate people. ² Hopefully by educating people, it’ll open a door for change. If someone does a project on a social issue, I really believe that somehow, change could come just by a few people being educated on that issue.

Milligan, I. (2013, December). Illusionary Order: Online Databases, Optical Character Recognition, and Canadian History, 1997–2010. Retrieved from https://muse-jhu-edu.mutex.gmu.edu/article/527016.