The power of Computational Literary Studies for GLAM
Making access equitable and engaged is complex.
Leveraging CLS tools in line with digitisation processes offers opportunities for improving information literacy, overcoming budget constraints, and serving diverse populations.
Literature can help.
Evidence of past and present culture
Make claims about the past and present identities and values through stories and fictional narratives.
Identify trends and patterns
Use literary narratives to provoke imagination and prototype future scenarios, cultures, technologies.
Example: EHRI, European Holocaust Research Infrastructure
Parse thousands of transcribed oral testimonials to recognise names, places, organisations and events. Tie these to the records of transcripts, maps, letters and objects to make your catalogue more interactive and accessible.
European Holocaust Research Infrastructure project (EHRI): https://blog.ehri-project.eu/about/
Method: Named Entity Recognition
Using a variety of existing digital tools, this method enables an extended search for “named entities” like people, institutions and places in a vast collection of text. This data can then enable the display of images, transcripts, maps and other information when a user searches the catalogue.
Example: Emotions of London
Help researchers explore and express the relationship between geographical spaces and their emotional representation in literature. This project reveals how place names and settings are charged with fear or happiness that ‘stick’ over time.
(Image credit and project: Emotions of London, Stanford Literary Lab)
Visualisation of Literature and Named Entity Recognition
Visualisation of literature is a CLS method that shows a graphical representation of information and data. Using Named Entity Recognition (NER) tools, a vast corpus can be searched for places and this data displayed dynamically. This provides an accessible way to see and understand patterns. This map shows place name mentions in the work of Charles Dickens. The larger the circle, the more mentions of the place there are across the whole corpus. Additional parameters can then be added to the search to demonstrate, for example, what places were in his writing during what periods of his life.
Reductionism
Literature can become in danger of being simplified and reduced to the instrumental.
Infrastructure
Integrating new digital formats involves learning different management standards while ensuring equitable access to technology.
Privacy
Managing the legal aspects of acquiring and sharing resources, including digital materials, is a complex task.
Let literature engage you.
For more details on tools, methods, training and more, check our Resources page or contact info@clsinfra.io!
Image credit: Storyset
Infographic concepts drawn from : “Understanding User Requirements beyond Academic Research. CLS Infrastructure (DARIAH): Deliverable 3.5”. 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tonJrL7tZXI., https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.13605872).