Dear all, apologies for cross-posting.
Next week, on Tuesday 4th February at 6.15pm, Pieter Francois (Oxford) will be giving a talk in the Centre for e-Research seminar series at King's College London. The talk is on: "Exploring very large collections of texts by creating structured unbiased samples." More details are at the bottom of this email.
The event is free of charge but please would you register beforehand, at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cerch-seminar-exploring-very-large-collections-...
Our seminars are held fortnightly on Tuesdays during term time at 6.15pm in the Anatomy Museum, on the 6th floor of King's Building, Strand Campus, King's College London: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/innovation/groups/cerch/research/projects/completed/atm... . Seminars are followed by drinks and nibbles.
The full programme for this term can be found at http://www.kcl.ac.uk/innovation/groups/cerch/research/seminars/2013-14.aspx.
We hope you can join us. Regards, Anna Jordanous (CeRch)
--- *Exploring very large collections of texts by creating structured unbiased samples* Pieter Francois (Oxford)
Abstract: This presentation introduces the 'Sample Generator', a digital tool which allows users to generate structured unbiased samples of (digital) texts from the nineteenth century British Library holdings. Using the Sample Generator allows researchers to explore quickly a very large dataset (the British Library has approximately 1.8 million nineteenth century holdings) in a methodologically robust way. Furthermore the generated samples are easily citable and shareable. The overall intellectual background of the Sample Generator is that of the 'generative humanities' in which a creative process of going back and forth between data and the conceptual drawing board takes centre stage. In addition to saving valuable research time, the main contribution of the Sample Generator is that it is a hypothesis generating and testing tool. This presentation will address the ideas behind the Sample Generator, offer a hands on showcasing of its main functionalities and will finally demonstrate the value and potential of the Sample Generator by zooming in briefly on one case study, i.e. an analysis of the changes in nineteenth century travel routes in Europe.
More details at http://www.kcl.ac.uk/innovation/groups/cerch/research/seminars/2013-14/s8exp...