Text Mining Digital Humanities Projects: Assessing Content Analysis Capabilities of Voyant Tools

Abstract

Text mining is a method that aids in the analytic process and interpretation of research. Voyant Tools (voyant-tools.org) is an open source text-mining option that is user-friendly and well documented. This tool was chosen as a test study for one of the latest projects, entitled Trials and Triumphs, at Middle Tennessee State University. The Trials and Triumphs project has been reengineered with new content, themes, and connections relating to Tennessee’s history between 1865 and 1965. Transformations are not just the subject during this historic time period but are equally met with transformative technical upgrades to the project’s previous interpretative layout. Digital Scholarship Initiatives at Middle Tennessee State University’s Walker Library tested the application and use of Voyant Tools to determine whether its text analysis capabilities are well suited for the Trials and Triumphs revitalization project (now called Trials, Triumphs, and Transformations: Tennesseans' Search for Citizenship, Community, and Opportunity) and whether its interoperability with Drupal was worth pursuing. The author describes the results of this test study and consequently intends this article to be a practical guide for librarians or similar scholars who develop digital humanities projects, and who are interested in beginning a text mining project.