> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://bcds.gitbook.io/handbook/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://bcds.gitbook.io/handbook/digital-scholarship-methods/data/what-is-data/humanities-and-data.md).

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