ThatCamp Jersey Shore: Engaging With Massive Humanities Datasets

The final panel of ThatCamp: Jersey Shore was run by Amanda French on engagement with massive humanities datasets. I’ve been tipping my toes into this field a bit recently, so I was eagerly awaiting this panel.

  • Franco Moretti’s very important Graphs, Maps, and Trees was discussed. Even with canon expansion, still only 10% of 19th century publications.
  • Digital humanities apply millions of pieces of data to Dickens instead of Foucault.
  • Moretti article Style Inc. looks at thousands of titles.
  • What does these large datasets do to applications like the Oxford English Dictionary? For example, the OED’s proclamation that OMG was first used in 1914.
  • Someone (Amanda?) wondered if these large datasets are leading to something like Borges’ Library of Babel.
  • Datasets more about questions than theory.

After ThatCamp was over, I headed out for lunch With Amanda, John Theibault, and Deb Gussman. A great end to an excellent conference.

 

Oxford English Dictionary Going Online Only

Via the excellent On Purpose comes word that the OED is going to be an Internet based dictionary after its third printing:

Biggest development?  The third edition of the 20-volume set of the Oxford English Dictionary will also be its last!  After publication of “the first comprehensive and up-to-date edition of the OED in one alphabetical sequence since the original edition of 1928?, the OED will (figuratively) close all 20 of its covers and move on to a bigger and brighter future as an internet-only text.

A few years ago I linked to a Susan Sontag interview in The Atlantic Monthly where she praised the idea of having the OED on a CD (which is funny considering she bashed electronic literature in a speech before her death).  The CD is quickly becoming an archaic, out of date, method for distribution.  I am glad the OED realizes this and has begun the transition to publishing on the Internet only.  The more accessible it becomes, the better.  I only wish a subscription came without such a steep price.