About
This is course work for the fall 2021 offering of the History of Big Data at NYU. I'm incredibly grateful to a large number of archivists, librarians, historians, and others who provided suggestions on Twitter: you can read a number of those below the form below. This course be offered again--if you wish to suggest another dataset for students to write about, please suggest it here.Suggestions
I asked online for some leads on digitized archives. Here are possibilities to check out, or which might serve as inspiration for more places to look. My thanks to everyone who suggested something here!How about 166 years of listing Jesuits all over the world? (mix of MS & print) https://t.co/quuqvEd0xp
— Ryan Baumann (\@ryanfb) September 30, 2021
Check out the Comédie-Française Registers Project for nightly performance receipts: https://t.co/n58hVMAre4
— Derek Miller (@DerekKMiller) September 30, 2021
The Rare Books department at \@BPLBoston has just digitized its catalog card collection— some of which are still the only records for these special collections holdings. There’s tons of useful work to be done parsing these imaged cards! https://t.co/Iv25qMV3oE cc \@Jay_Moschella
— Garrett Dash Nelson (\@en_dash) September 30, 2021
One from my own diss research: Colonial Office correspondence registers. Australia has microfilmed and digitized the parts relevant to Australiasia <https://t.co/fC5c2ecbvD>.
— Thanasis Kinias, Ph.D. (\@tkinias) September 30, 2021
The registers are in different series than the original correspondence, e.g. CO 424 is the register for colonial Queensland <https://t.co/IJBpQBiIjX>. The early volumes are a bit sparse, but by the late 19C these are very rich in metadata about the correspondence.
— Thanasis Kinias, Ph.D. (\@tkinias) September 30, 2021
See the Mountain States Weather Services Monthly Climatological Data: https://t.co/9jIlhWgfms#climatology #Colorado #archives #weather pic.twitter.com/kwiMiIEUm4
— Mark Shelstad (\@markshelstad) September 30, 2021
(Note--this is an extensive list of multiple archives, worth reading through if you're not sure what you're looking for.)I'd take a look at \@BL_EAP for some really varied collections, and \@_FromThePage_ have been doing work with structured table / spreadsheet transcription so might have some good examples to hand
— Dr Mia Ridge (\@mia_out) September 30, 2021
My list here includes quite a lot of non-printed sources, if any of them are interested in early modern: https://t.co/Pukb8XpAWi
— Sharon Howard (\@sharon_howard) September 30, 2021
We digitized the Boston Phoenix's indexes: https://t.co/eCEQyin1tihttps://t.co/lRcl76z9pg
— Giordana Mecagni (\@gmecagni) September 30, 2021
Back to Mia's suggestion, spreadsheet projects we host include these:
— Ben W. Brumfield (\@benwbrum) September 30, 2021
Arnold Arboretum collection notes:https://t.co/tKhSJ80sFPhttps://t.co/ZyIPkjJqil
Lone Rock Stockade convict leasing records:https://t.co/TrGW7ScGtq
Queensland female prison records:https://t.co/wXl4PO6jeb
Hospital records from the American Civil War might make for some good (and gruesome) sources. There are some digitized CW hospital case books at UA Birmingham's library, the "BW Allen Reports" https://t.co/dzPs25dCsN
— Jonathan S. Jones (\@_jonathansjones) September 30, 2021
Of potential interest/relevance https://t.co/jHUNwlDWH8 and https://t.co/4gAPcVEITV
— Trevor Owens 💾🗄🕚 (\@tjowens) September 30, 2021
Also, many of the individual documents in this collection could be relevant https://t.co/aGkKiCuohS
— Trevor Owens 💾🗄🕚 (\@tjowens) September 30, 2021
the w.e.b. dubois archives:https://t.co/aEk1ir264c
— brendan o'connor (\@brendan642) September 30, 2021
has plenty of variety (as suggested by the series titles), e.g.https://t.co/iXckVJ9UBOhttps://t.co/SoiGcr95p0
UH special collections has some v interesting digitized Houston history archives; \@JulieGrob wd prob have lots of ideas https://t.co/f2WM6MlVeT
— Dave Mazella (\@DaveMazella) September 30, 2021
Hi! 👋 What a fun assignment! The first thing that came to mind is early ecologist Ed Ricketts’ survey cards. He was a meticulous record keeper for observations of marine species. https://t.co/geAK7fXPCs
— Dr. Amanda Whitmire 🧜🏼♀️ (\@AWhitTwit) September 30, 2021
More generally, any herbarium collection should qualify. Browse https://t.co/kXyu4EV9VK. \@BioDivLibrary is also a perfect resource for this assignment if you are interested in science collections.
— Dr. Amanda Whitmire 🧜🏼♀️ (\@AWhitTwit) September 30, 2021
More generally, any herbarium collection should qualify. Browse https://t.co/kXyu4EV9VK. \@BioDivLibrary is also a perfect resource for this assignment if you are interested in science collections.
— Dr. Amanda Whitmire 🧜🏼♀️ (\@AWhitTwit) September 30, 2021
A note on this one--it lists a bunch of libraries that have created high-quality digital images in a format called IIIF we'll be exploring later. So these might be places to click a link and then put "register", "ledger", "cards", etc. into a search box.University library records?
— Matthew Sangster (\@MJRSangster) September 30, 2021
I have a project on Glasgow up here, which includes page images: https://t.co/p8Idoi9Vgc.
St Andrews have a number of borrowing registers and catalogues online here: https://t.co/vkFaOAK7NH.
Awesome assignment and happy that #IIIF is useful -- this a nascent effort that we'll be expanding on in coming months, and perhaps it might be useful to you/your students: https://t.co/ugqDoF3WOT (many more major collections to be added there, but it's a start)
— Josh Hadro (\@Hadro) September 30, 2021
I've just finished giving a session on the "Transcribing the Book of Remembrance" project which is 20C but fits the bill of a different kind of database in #iiif: https://t.co/7HUK2Fp7UX
— Glen Robson (\@glenrobson) September 30, 2021
I agree a local gazetteer is a good place to start, and lots of freely accessible digitized copies here: https://t.co/qnXTOAODxE
— Hilde De Weerdt (@hild_de) September 30, 2021
British military lists? https://t.co/dc64LZuGJP Or pre-computer library catalogues? https://t.co/28s26ekAtd
— Helen Vincent (@helenrvincent) September 30, 2021
franklin's post office books digitized by aps: https://t.co/1rt8IIWlL4. https://t.co/9uo2RW0v50
— susan garfinkel (@footnotesrising) September 30, 2021
If you're happy for your students to "travel" abroad, there's the @LSELibrary Charles Booth data archive: https://t.co/OEK7OPJZzM
— Prof Laura Vaughan (@urban_formation) October 1, 2021
And the court proceedings of @OldBaileyOnline London's central criminal court 1674-1913: The Old Bailey Online: https://t.co/OMohGYhRpx.
Also, there are these handwritten logs from a commercial photographer here: https://t.co/GDeQK0dYbG and we have transcribed about 1/2 of them.
— Giordana Mecagni (@gmecagni) September 30, 2021
thomas nevil day book at https://t.co/CY3Y2Yy980 and one relevant article: https://t.co/Yo2lUQou7O
— susan garfinkel (@footnotesrising) September 30, 2021
Thanks for the shout-out! Franklin's shop ledgers, an 18c. indenture records book, and more are also digitized/datafied and accessible at https://t.co/YwY1r1qrwp
— 🧟 link rot + inherent vice 💀 (@comebackcities) October 1, 2021
YMCA WW1 service punch cards from @yarchives at the @umnlib https://t.co/NPDpzI6ptN
— Lara F-S (@ldfs) October 2, 2021