Just like a kid at a table, I was given some preformed clay and told to make some beautiful works. Not having to do “the set up”, Palladio was relatively easy to get “into” network analysis and start messing around. Palladio is a “general-purpose suite of visualization and analytical tools” that enables researchers to map and graph humanities data. (http://hdlab.stanford.edu/palladio/about/) When we are discussing data here we mean “corpus” (techie term – compilations for the rest of us) of, in my case, the historian’s research (people, events, addresses, dates, contacts, documents, etc.). The data can be vast amounts of material (text, photographs, tables, etc.) or relatively small collections. The software in the platform through the use of algorithms (sets of directions) transforms our element (node) into a “plotable point on a map or graph. The schema for assembling, disassembling and reassembling produces various kinds of maps, graphs, constellations all with the associated metadata accessible. These manipulations draw (“edges” for the techies) “connections and patterns” (for the rest of us) that can be seen. These “visualizations” foster enhanced understanding of the data itself and make obvious how elements within the data are connected or not and because of the ability to “play” (isolating “ALL” the variables and being able to test relationships or time series, in space or against a physical map) new questions are brought to the researchers mind, hypothesis can be verified and various problems or possibilities can be explored and addressed. Our ‘Ideas’ become pictures that enable us to work with them, without losing track of them, from various perspectives.
The designers of Palladio built it for mapping the correspondence metadata of a project called “The Republic of Letters” which explores the connections of Enlightenment Intellectuals and the transference of ideas through their letters. (Visualize massive amounts of text in multiple languages). Palladio understands the historian’s mind and methodology,
“It is an environment that supports thinking through data. Like so many historical sources, the (data) is incomplete in unpredictable ways. Historians work with fragments of information from the past, not complete data sets. ..tools need to support scholars in building an understanding of the historical material through working with it. To create Palladio, we had to externalize what is a very internal, individual, thought process. “ http://hdlab.stanford.edu/palladio/about/
My trial experience working with Palladio centered around a data set created by Prof. Robertson from the Works Progress Administration Slave Narratives. (https://www.loc.gov/collections/slave-narratives-from-the-federal-writers-project-1936-to-1938/about-this-collection/ ) Since I was able to upload ‘Palladio prepared data’, I was able to avoid a time consuming task of aligning my data for Palladio manipulation.
It was relatively fast and easy to create the primary table (main data set) against which other tables (elements of the data) could be manipulated. For the Slave Data, the primary data set was the Alabama Slave Interviews and the subtables were identifications of the former slaves that were interviewed and data about the interviewers. Once the tables are created, they can be analyzed with various tools including locating the slaves/interviews on a map, drawing connections between an interviewer and the slaves interviewed, creating network analysis of various types by the individual elements within the data sets. The “visualizations” I made included maps, string and cloud diagrams (okay I admit– I got interested and played with time series and graphs as well). It was fascinating and time consuming to try different arrangements that suggested unique relationships, impact of place and Slave occupation. Also revealed were limits in the veracity of the data (not a reliable reflection of slave tasks or a true reflection of statewide representation), but also new issues to consider, such as how does the gender of the interviewer impact the questions used in an oral history interview?
Palladio describes itself as “a tool for reflective practice.” Both Scott Weingart (“Networks Demystified” Blog December 5, 2013) and Ryan Cordell (“Reprinting, Circulation and the Network Author in Antebellum Newspapers”), call to our attention that compiled data has its issues, in the same way normal archival research has gaps and biases and snags. It is easy to see how visualizations could cause erroneous interpretations. And truly the data is just a picture of the facts and still requires interpretation as to its meaning and significance. So the mind and integrity of the historian is still crucial to good history…but new Playdough is always fun and creative!
