I will admit at the outset that perceptions of this week’s material were colored (or de-saturated) by my struggle with insomnia.
I’ll start with the positives of GIS mapping. Siebert, rightly, points out that history is a study of spatial dimension, but historians often fail to examine it due to the difficulty of capturing it. (1) GIS allows for an examination of data in a way that is not possible with traditional archival research. This expands the scope of research and provides visual evidence to problems not obvious in written formats. (2) This is not to say that GIS replaces the need for traditional methodology, but that it supplements written sources, and refines the scholar’s questions and findings.
Now, let me speak to the negatives. First and obviously is that data-entry is expensive and time consuming. (3) Considering the challenge with humanities funding, this means that historians can find themselves doing more inputting that analysis – with some projects requiring years to enter the data. Secondly, GIS systems can process large amounts of data that are imported/exported from other systems, but this process is not easy or free of errors. (4) Their mathematical design, generally, makes them unable to adjust to or “replicate the flexibility, generalization, and synthesis capabilities of the human brain.” (5) The third negative, which will lead to my personal examination, is that GIs is very similar to statistics, and anyone who has taken a course in it knows the phrase “there are lies, damn lies, and then there are statistics.” GIS systems are only as good as the data that is entered into them, and how it is entered.
With all that said, I completely see the value GIS brings to historians. Then I tried to work on it. I’m sure I would have had a different experience if I was able to attend class on Monday. However, I was on my own with Dr. Otis detailed tutorial. After failing four times to get the layer properties to work the way the instructions asked, I had a revelation. This Is Not For Me!
Data entry is not why I became a historian. I don’t enjoy Cliometrics, mathematics, or statistical analysis. I recognize that it is important. I am sure I will need it in my career. However, I don’t have to do it. This is an example of one of those wonderful collaborative moments in Digital History. I will gladly apply for a grant to pay a computer scientist to do this work. I will be happy to provide work for a graduate research assistant. But I don’t have or want to do it. Nope…Not For Me!
1. Loren Siebert, “Using GIS to Document, Visualize, and Interpret Tokyo’s Spatial History,” Social Science History 24, no. 3 (2000), http://www.jstor.org/stable/1171611, 538.
2. Susan Grunewald, “Beyond the Archive: What GIS Mapping Reveals about German POWs in Soviet Russia,” Perspectives on History, February 26, 2019, https://www.historians.org/perspectives-article/beyond-the-archive-what-gis-mapping-reveals-about-german-pows-in-soviet-russia-february-2019/
3. Siebert, “Using GIS to Document,” 568.
4. Siebert, “Using GIS to Document,” 544.
5. Siebert, “Using GIS to Document,” 569.
5 responses to “Nope…Not For Me!”
QGIS is open-source software in which the developer and user community substantially overlap. Most people would rather build a new feature (or get a grant to build one) that helps with their work than chip away at software debt to improve the experience for a new user. Thus, the steep learning curve. But it’s free.
Hi Denton,
One skill that is important to have is recognition of what you do not want to dabble in. At least you are now aware of what it can entail, and know how to request the funding for people to do that work!
I am sure that your skills as an archivist far outweigh the frustration, time, more frustration, and feelings of inadequacy that at least I know I have felt in the journey of learning of data visualization and GIS. Being able to hand someone a fairly complete set of sources because you are aware of their existence as the archivist is, in my opinion, the key to what historians do.
Best,
Andrew
Hi Denton!
Sorry you couldn’t make it to class. If it helps, you aren’t the only one the GIS software dislikes. I managed to break it in multiple new and stupid ways with Dr. Otis, Maddie, and Katie helping me. I think you have a really good point about GIS software being a reflection of the data entered and how it was entered. A lot of the material this week talked about incomplete or skewed data and time-consuming data entry, but I think you’ve made some really good points about the human element.
QGIS was already quite a difficult technology to learn even with Dr. Otis’s guidance — I can’t imagine having to do it yourself at home. Definitely agree with your analysis that GIS is best for refining out questions and supplementing our findings, not as a drop-in replacement for traditional historical methods. And I think it’s a very good thing to be able to recognize our strengths and weaknesses in method, and when we will need to be able to look to someone else for help. Since we are talking about computers, there’s a design philosophy in computing known as Unix, one of the core tenants of which is that parts of a system should, “Do one thing and do it well.” Being able to recognize what we do well is how we build stronger systems of learning.
I appreciate your honesty and empathize completely with your post—I found myself in a similar spot in class last week, where I could clearly see the benefit of HGIS representations… if it hadn’t taken me four failed attempts to figure out how to join the vector and text layers in QGIS. Though HGIS methodology can be valuable to historians in a variety of scenarios (including both conducting and communicating research), I don’t see myself becoming proficient in it on my own given the time commitment needed to simply learn its various menu items. As someone further toward the “H” side rather than the “D” side in this case, I agree that the collaborative nature of DH work has its benefits.