First off, just looking at an embeded map like the one above is suggestive of the potential of web mapping in DH. With only 4 points on a map and the help of a legend and some labels, a story that traverses space and time is being told. They say that a picture says a thousand words, but a map says so much more. Such a powerful technologies can enhance the digital humanities by providing a new, interesting, and interactive medium through which stories can be told.
This week, we have seen the power of web mapping in many complex DH projects, such as this project on mapping poverty in America. I will admit, however, that I have no idea the details of how they made this map. For all I know, they could have used ArcGIS. As we have discussed in class, ArcGIS can be an incredibly complex and confusing software to use (hence why we have our very own expert in GIS at Carleton, Wei-Hsin Fu). I also find it a point of personal grievance that ArcGIS is such expensive software, which inherently seems very un-DHesque. With how difficult it may be and how expensive it certainly is, while it may be a great contribution to DH research, it makes web mapping inaccessible.
ArcGIS Online has helped alleviate some of this. From discussions in class, I got the impression that it is supposed to be easier to navigate than ArcGIS. This was true in practice, at least that was our user experience in the process of making the embedded map at the top of this post. Having an institutional affiliation abstracted the payment layer, so it was at the very least accessible to Carleton students, but I imagine it requires a costly institutional subscription.
I’m happy to see that open-source alternatives do exist though. From some quick googling, I was able to find this list of 10 free and open-source web mapping software. Part of the reason I love DH is that it places an emphasis on accessible science both for researchers and for consumers, but usage of such inaccessible technologies like GIS contradicts the DH identity. Moving open source means that digital humanists can make their awesome projects and not have to come into conflict with who they are.
4 thoughts on “The World of Webmapping”
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I agree strongly with the fun of DH being it’s accessibility. A lot of the things that we have used, we only have had access to because of our Carleton student status. I wonder how these open source platforms affect to programs that aren’t open to the public. To what extent do DH programs and software need to produce and make money. I can see there being a bit of tension with these different approaches to software.
You bring up a very interesting point that I did not take notice of. I agree with the fact that the DH community aims to increase accessibility in their field despite creating software that is expensive and instead deters that goal. Nevertheless, I think the community needs some sort of revenue to help fund its projects and incentivize its members. If not, they will mostly depend on donations which might not be enough on most occasions. Thus, it will be good for companies like ESRI to have a free version of ArcGIS with the basic features required by a digital humanist to make a simple DH project, then a paid version for more advanced work.
Working with digital humanities applications over the term has definitely revealed how inaccessible DH can be as a whole. Even with institutional access servers can get overloaded, but those with premium subscriptions are able to work around this. I’d like to see more applications have free features while potentially running sidebar ads (although this has the potential to easily render the application unusable).
That is such an interesting take. I first used ArcGIS for this course, and my first impression is that the software is intuitive. However, after reading your post I started thinking about how it can get incredibly complex as you start working on more elaborate maps. You brought up another very valid point on the price of using ArcGIS, especially because of the importance digital humanities place on open-source software. Do you think it would be possible/viable to start using one of the tools you mentioned in your post instead of ArcGIS?