Intern Research

Sarah Potvin: “An Inquiry into Authorship Attribution.”

A survey and assessment of current tools and techniques for supporting authorship attribution research. Project undertaken by Sarah Potvin in summer 2009 at the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, as part of the IMLS-sponsored Digital Humanities Internship Program.

Abstract: At attempt to establish the authorship of several unsigned pieces that appeared in the Pittsburgh magazine Home Monthly circa 1896-1897 using computational attribution techniques did not deliver robust results. The report that follows examines the computational methods advocated by professors David Hoover, Patrick Juola, and Matthew Jockers. It emphasizes the importance of contextualizing any statistical attribution results with traditional scholarship, as demonstrated by both Hoover and Jockers, and calls for collaboration between humanists and statisticians in interpreting and integrating statistical data.

Joshunda Sanders: “Digitization of The State News 1909-2009.”

Web access plan for Michigan State University’s historical student newspapers. Authored by Joshunda Sanders as part of the IMLS-funded Digital Humanities Internship Program, summer 2009.

Abstract: The Michigan State University Library, University Archives, The State News and MATRIX, The Center for Humane Arts, Letters and Social Sciences Online, plan to digitize the university’s collection of historical newspapers from The State News, the University’s student newspaper which has been published since 1909. This IMLS-funded distance project, hosted at MSU but achieved mostly on-line from Austin, explores digitization barriers and options for the existing paper and microfilm copies of The State News. The project also includes Use Case descriptions, or suggested audiences for the digitized issues, metadata suggestions for providing web access to the newspapers, and the most complete inventory of the historical newspapers available to date. Metadata has been suggested in accordance with Dublin Core, the primary standard used for KORA, MATRIX’ repository. Further recommendations for the State News‘ potential digitization are also included, in addition to a list of potential vendors and examples of student newspaper digitization efforts from around the country.