Digital Humanities Resources, Methods and Tools
Here are some general-purpose resources for developing digital humanities projects.
For resources and tools related to specific DH methodologies, please explore the other tabs in this box!
Best Practices for Digital Humanities Projects
- A brief guide from the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Development for the Digital Humanities
- A resource for developing and managing digital humanities projects. Includes sections on formulating research questions, defining projects, making a plan for data, and many other crucial features of a DH project.
- This book provides a plainspoken and thorough introduction to the web for historians who wish to produce online historical work, or to build upon and improve the projects they have already started in this important new medium.
Digital Research Tools (DiRT)
- Archived version (2019) of the DiRT Directory is a registry of digital research tools for scholarly use.
Introduction to Digital Humanities Course Book
- Adapted from DH 101 UCLA course
- Peer-reviewed, hands-on workshop/tutorials
Visualizing Objects, Places, and Spaces: A Digital Project Handbook
- A guide to the essential steps needed to plan a digital project. You can learn more about various project types, or look at case studies and assignments to see what others have done. You can also submit your own work for inclusion.
Text encoding and analysie involves using computational tools to analyze large amounts of text, such as books, articles and manuscripts, to uncover patterns and connections that would be difficult to find by reading them manually.
Tools and resources for text encoding and analysis:
- Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) Consortium
- Provides guidelines for structuring texts for digital analysis with project example
- Natural Language Processing with Python
- This freely available book provides a practical introduction to natural language processing (NLP) using the Python programming language, and it includes many examples of how NLP can be applied to textual data in the humanities
- Voyant Tools
- A web-based text-analysis tool
- WordSmith
- A tool that allows users to develop concordances, find keywords, and develop word lists from plain text files
- Constellate
- Currently (2022), UCLA researchers have access to the free platform. Constellate allows you to build collections of content from multiple platforms (JStor, Portico, Chronicling America) as well as learn, teach, and perform text analysis (Constellate tutorial list)
- OpenRefine
- a powerful tool for working with messy data: cleaning it; transforming it from one format into another; and extending it with web services and external data.
- Mallet
- Open source machine-learning toolkit. Topic models are useful for analyzing large collections of unlabeled text. The MALLET topic modeling toolkit contains efficient, sampling-based implementations of Latent Dirichlet Allocation, Pachinko Allocation, and Hierarchical LDA.
- Hathi Trust Research Commons (HTRC) Analytics
- Supports large-scale computational analysis of the works in the HathiTrust Digital Library to facilitate non-profit and educational research. Related: Programming Historian Python text mining tutorial for HathiTrust Research Center’s Extracted Features dataset
Digital mapping and spatial analysis involves creating digital maps and spatial analyses to study the relationships between people, places, and events in the past and present.
Tools and resources for digital mapping and spatial analysis:
- ArcGIS
- Geographic Information Systems (GIS) mapping software.
- OpenStreetMap
- Created by a global community of contributors, OpenStreetMap is a free, editable map of the world with an emphasis on local knowledge, existing as open data that can be used for research projects (or any other purpose) with proper credit
Network analysis and visualization involves using computational tools to analyze and visualize relationships between people, ideas, and events, in order to understand how they are connected and how they have changed over time.
Tools and resources for network analysis
Digital preservation and archiving involves creating digital copies of historical and cultural artifacts and making them available online, with the goal of preserving them for future generations.
Tools and resources for digital preservation:
- Omeka
- Omeka is a free, flexible, and open source web-publishing platform for the display of library, museum, archives, and scholarly collections and exhibitions. Its “five-minute setup” makes launching an online exhibition as easy as launching a blog. To create maps and timelines, see Neatline, a suite of add-on tools.
- Collection Builder
- Collection Builder is an open source tool for creating digital collection and exhibit websites that are driven by metadata and powered by modern static web technology
- Drupal
- Drupal is an open source content management system for supporting resources like blogs and web sites
- oXygen
- A cross-platform XML editor that may be used to create and validate XML documents and associated schema
Data visualization is the process of using graphical representations to show the results of data analysis, such as graphs, charts, and maps, which can help to identify patterns and trends. See the UCLA Data Visualization Research Guide for more information.
Collaborative research and annotation is the practice of multiple researchers working together using digital tools and platforms to annotate, analyze, and interpret data.
Tools and resources for collaborative research and annotation:
- Recogito
- Supports semantic markup/annotation, named-entity recognition, Geo-names
- Scalar
- A semantic web authoring and publishing platform that supports various media annotations and multiple authors
- Hypothesis
- Annotate the web with anyone, anywhere
Virtual reality (VR) and 3D modeling involves using virtual reality and 3D modeling techniques to create immersive simulations of historical and cultural sites, which can be used for research and education.
Tools and resources for VR and 3D modeling:
- Blender
- Free open source 3D creation software that provides tools for modeling, animation, and simulation
- SketchUp
- 3D modeling software with a simple, user-friendly interface for creating 3D models and scenes
- Maya
- A professional 3D animation software developed by Autodesk for more technically advanced users which provides a comprehensive set of tools for creating complex 3D models, animations, and simulations
General Purpose Data Analysis Tools and Resources
Here are some commonly used tools for data cleaning, statistical analysis and visualization.
UCLA offers various free and discounted licenses for some software products, so make sure to check the list before paying for a program.
Python is a programming language that enables data analysis.
- Download Python (free)
- Google Colaboratory (no download)
- Allows you to interactively write and execute Python in your browser with easy storage and sharing through Google Drive. It is a cloud-based version of Jupyter Notebook.
- Plotting and Programming in Python (Software Carpentries)
- The Python Tutorial (Python Documentation)
- Data Visualization with Python (GeeksforGeeks)
- Python Tutorial (W3Schools)
- Scikit-learn: Machine Learning Library
R is a programming language that enables data analysis.
- Download R (free)
- R Resources from UCLA OARC Stats Consulting
- Detailed Introduction to R
- R for Reproducible Scientific Analysis (Software Carpentries)
- R for Data Science
MATLAB is a proprietary programming language and numeric computing environment.
- How to Get Matlab (free for UCLA students, staff and faculty)
- Matlab Statistics & Machine Learning Toolbox
- Matlab Plotting (Tutorialspoint)
- Advanced Graphics and Visualization Techniques with MATLAB
Open Refine is a powerful tool for working with messy data: cleaning it; transforming it from one format into another; and extending it with web services and external data.
- Download OpenRefine (free)
- OpenRefine Introduction
- OpenRefine Documentation and Support
- Lesson on OpenRefine (Library Carpentries)
- Cleaning Data with OpenRefine (The Programming Historian)
- Fetching and Parsing Data from the Web with OpenRefine (The Programming Historian)
- Using OpenRefine to Clean Your Data (Berkeley Advanced Media Institute)
Tableau Software helps people see and understand data. Tableau allows anyone to perform sophisticated education analytics and share their findings with online dashboards.
- Tableau Download (free for full-time UCLA students)
- Tableau Getting Started Overview
- Tableau Help Guide (Princeton)
- Get the Microsoft Office 365 Education Suite (free for UCLA students)
- Data Analysis with Excel
- Excel Data Analysis Overview (Tutorialspoint)
Stata is a proprietary, general-purpose statistical software package for data manipulation, visualization, statistics, and automated reporting. It is used by researchers in many fields, including biomedicine, economics, epidemiology and sociology.
- Order Stata (discounted for students and education)
- STATA Resources from UCLA OARC Stats Consulting
- Stata User Guide
- Stata Coding Guide
- Online Stata Tutorial
- Getting Started in Data Analysis using Stata
SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) is a software package used for the analysis of statistical data. Although the name of SPSS reflects its original use in the field of social sciences, its use has since expanded into other data markets.
ArcGIS is geospatial software to view, edit, manage and analyze geographic data. It enables users to visualize spacial data and create maps.
- A community where people can ask, answer, and search for questions related to programming
- Lessons to build software skills, part of the larger community The Carpentries which aims to teach foundational computational and data science skills to researchers
- Cloud-based service website based on Git software that allows develops to store and manage their code, especially helpful for version control during collaboration. The Software Carpentries has a lesson on Git and Github where you can learn more
- List of tools and resources to explore, publish, and share public datasets with sections specifically for visualization, data, source code, and information.
- List of interactive computing platforms for data science, includes comparison table at the bottom of the page
- Open graph visualization platform, well-known as a tool for network visualization
Digital Humanities in Practice
DH Projects at UCLA:
- UCLA Library Digital Collections This link opens in a new windowRare and unique digital materials developed by the UCLA Library to support education, research, service, and creative expression, including the AIDS Poster Collection, the Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive and more.
- AEGARON: Ancient Egyptian Architecture OnlineProvides vetted and standardized architectural drawings of a selection of ancient Egyptian buildings.
- Digital KarnakArchived version of this resource.
Other DH Projects:
- Ancient World Mapping CenterThe Ancient World Mapping center hosts maps, articles, images of artifacts, and bibliographies of the ancient world. Tools used on this project are: XML, TEI, CSS2, JAWS for Windows.
- The Complete Writings and Pictures of Dante Gabriel RossettiThe Rossetti Archive features materials by and about the nineteenth-cenury Victorian painter, designer, writer and translator, Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Among the resources on this website are books, manuscripts, correspondence, pictures, and poems. The tools used are: Collex, XML.
- Digital Black HistoryA free, searchable directory for online history projects that can help further Black History research. This ongoing project was created to collect information about these digital Black History projects in order to benefit historians, genealogists, and family historians who are researching the lives of Black individuals and families.
- Documenting the American SouthThis project is a digital puclishing initiative that provides Internet access to texts, images, and audio files related to Southern history, literature, and culture.
- East London Theater ArchiveThe East London Theatre Archive provides online access to resources of music hall and variety theatres in London's East End during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The tools used in this project are: Fedora Commons, Javascript, MySQL, and PHP.
- Eighteenth-Century Book TrackerLinks to freely-available digital facsimiles of eighteenth-century texts available at sites like Google Books and the Internet Archive.
- French and Francophone Digital Humanities ProjectsIncludes major Francophone digital collections, arranged by country/region.
- Mark Twain ProjectThe mark Twain Project offers access to a variety of Mark Twain's writings, including texts, exhaustive notes, recently discovered letters, and documents relating to the author. Tools used in this project are: XML, STF, TEI, METS, MADS, MODS, DTD
- The Monastic Wales ProjectThe Monastic Wales project fetures primary sources, secondary literature, maps, bibliographies, and articles on the monastic history of Medieval Wales. The tools used on this project are: MySQL, PHP.
- Perseus Digital Library This link opens in a new windowThe Perseus Digital Library features primary and secondary documents that document the history, literature, and culture of the Greco-Roman world. Tools used in this project are: TEI, XML.
- Valley of the ShadowThe Valley of the Shadow provides details about the lives of two communities, one Northern and the other Southern, during the Civil War. Included are original diaries, letters, newspapers, speeches, census and church records. Tools used: Apache Lucene, Apache Solr, Cocoon.
- The Walt Whitman ArchiveResearch and teaching tool for the study of Walt Whitman, containing material from libraries and collections all over the world.
- The William Blake Archive"The Blake Archive was conceived as an international public resource that would provide unified access to major works of visual and literary art that are highly disparate, widely dispersed, and more and more often severely restricted as a result of their value, rarity, and extreme fragility."
- The World of DanteA multi-media research tool intended to facilitate the study of the Divine Comedy through a wide range of offerings, e.g. an encoded Italian text which allows for structured searches and analyses, an English translation, interactive maps, diagrams, music, a database, timeline and gallery of illustrations.
Electronic Journals:
- The Digital Humanities Quarterly (DHQ)Digital humanities is a diverse and still emerging field that encompasses the practice of humanities research in and through information technology, and the exploration of how the humanities may evolve through their engagement with technology, media, and computational methods. DHQ seeks to provide a forum where practitioners, theorists, researchers, and teachers in this field can share their work with each other and with those from related disciplines.
- Digital Humanities QuarterlyThe mission of the DHQ includes experimenting with publication formats and the rhetoric of digital authoring, collaborating with ADHO's flagship print journal, Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, in order to bridge the print-divide, using open standards in delivering journal content, facilitating international participation while developing translation services allowing multilingual review.
- Digital Studies / Le Champ NumeriquePublished three times a year, this peer-reviewed multilingual and interdisciplinary journal focuses on emerging digital humanities methodology and its application. This journal is also licensed under a creative commons attribution 3.0 license.
- Vectors: Journal of Culture and Technology in a Dynamic VernacularThis semi-annual journal utilizes emergent and transitionsl media to publish works on social, political and cultural issues.
- First MondayThs peer-reviewed online journal publishes articles on the subject of the Internet and information technology. With articles on the subjects of digital libraries, digitization, metadata, and the humanities in the digital age, First Monday proves to be a valuable resource in the study of the Digital Humanities.
- Journal of Digital HumanitiesThe Journal of Digital Humanities is a comprehensive, peer-reviewed, open access journal that features the best scholarship, tools, and conversations produced by the digital humanities community in the previous quarter.
- Journal of Open Humanities DataGreat resource for published data-sets
- Reviews in DHis the pilot of a peer-reviewed journal and project registry that facilitates scholarly evaluation and dissemination of digital humanities work and its outputs
Subject Specific:
- Digital MedievalistThis online peer-reviewed journal publishes articles on technological topics that relate to humanities computing and digital media relevant to the study of medieval history.
- 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth19 is an open-access, scholarly, refereed web journal dedicated to advancing interdisciplinary study in the long nineteenth century. 19 publishes two themed issues annually, each consisting of a collection of peer-reviewed articles showcasing the broadest range of new research in nineteenth-century studies, as well as special forums advancing critical debate in the field.
- Contemporary AestheticsIn recent years aesthetics has grown into a rich and varied discipline. Its scope has widened to embrace ethical, social, religious, environmental, and cultural concerns. As international communication increases through more frequent congresses and electronic communication, varied traditions have joined with its historically interdisciplinary character, making aesthetics a focal center of diverse and multiple interests.
Non-Peer Reviewed:
- Journal of Electronic PublishingPublished by the Scholarly Publishing Office of the University of Michigan University Library, this journal focuses on the methods and means of contemporary publishing and digital communication.
- Text Technology: The Journal of Computer Text ProcessingThe online journal of the Society for thei Digital Humanities / Société pour l'étude des médias interactifs dedicated to sypplying articles relating to the use of computers in analysis and creation of texts. Article topics include professional and academic writing and research, analysis of texts, electronic publishing, software and book reviews, and issues relating to the internet.
- Digital Humanities NowDigital Humanities Now showcases the scholarship and news of interest to the digital humanities community through a process of aggregation, discovery, curation, and review .Digital Humanities Now also is an experiment in ways to identify, evaluate, and distribute scholarship on the open web through a weekly publication and the quarterly Journal of Digital Humanities.