# Humanities & Data

While data-oriented scholarship is perhaps more often associated with the sciences and social sciences, it has as much purpose and relevance in the humanities. 

**Data visualization** can be used to illustrate social networks, how information spreads over time and place, historical, literary, and intellectual trends, and much more. The [*Belfast Group Poetry*](https://belfastgroup.digitalscholarship.emory.edu/) visualizes literary networks and [*Geography of the Post*](http://cameronblevins.org/gotp/) visualizes the spread of the US Postal Service in the nineteenth century. 

{% embed url="<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_Q2olSSk4Y>" %}
About Geography of the Post
{% endembed %}

**Database creation** also makes up a considerable amount of humanities data-related scholarship. Such databases often incorperate primary sources and facilitate the asking and answering of research questions. [*They Came on Waves of Ink*](https://seanfraga.com/wavesofink/) is a database created from a nineteenth-century Puget Sound Customs District ledger and [*Enslaved.org*](https://enslaved.org/), a highly collaborative and grant-funded project, is a database created from slavery-related records provided by different archives and datasets from existing projects like [*Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database*](https://www.slavevoyages.org/).

{% embed url="<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia5TNi7uWnw>" %}
About Enslaved.org
{% endembed %}

![Visualization created in Enslaved.org](/files/-MZJJKA27tdf1vrwN7Eu)


---

# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
GET https://bcds.gitbook.io/handbook/digital-scholarship-methods/data/what-is-data/humanities-and-data.md?ask=<question>
```

The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.