Foucault argues that because “certain aphasiacs, when shown various differently coloured skeins of wool on a table top, are consistently unable to arrange them into any coherent pattern,” language is required for categorization (Foucault xviii). The opposite might also be true; the nature of language encourages people to categorize. Words as simple as “sister,” “brother,” “near,” “far,” “expensive,” or “cheap” exist because the nature of descriptive words is to place things into more easily understood categories.
For Digital Humanities in particular, categorization is important because this study focuses on how to present and understand large data sets. Providing a list of thousands of data points is not a useful way to present information; it must be organized into a fashion more easily understood.
Categorization of data into databases does cause some problems, however. For example, if the people creating the categories don’t know what the data will ultimately be used for, they might split the data up into categories that are not useful at all. I have seen this in my work in economic research. The Census Bureau often presents data separated into age groups; if a study is being done on a specific age instead of the age group, this category is not useful. Alternately, the Bureau of Labor Statistics provides employment data separated into years and location; if a comparison must be done for all locations in a particular year, re-assembling the data out of the categories provided can be a lengthy process. Dividing data into too many categories can be as irritating to the user as dividing data into too few categories. Stephen Ramsay discusses the problems inherent in setting up a database, pointing out that “one needs to balance the goals of correctness against the practical exigencies of the system and its users” (Ramsay).
The end-user of a system ought to determine how the system is organized. For example, I once got a job organizing music for a high school choir teacher. For this, the first step was to categorize by “Christmas and Non Christmas Music”, because that is how High School Choir teachers use their music. But, if I were organizing it for another purpose, this would be pointless. In this instance, having the works digitized is helpful, because it flattens all the categories onto one level. The user can sort by the category they want, instead of have to work in the order used by the person organizing the music. Sperberg-McQueen discusses this by saying “the order of axes has tended to become somewhat less important in multidimensional classification schemes intended for computer use” (Sperberg-McQueen).
Zotero is a place where the end user and the person organizing the database ought to be the same person – me. For this reason, I will be using the folder function to keep track of things, and will come up with a keyword system as I work further toward my research projects. I must be careful and check my citations when they are generated from the browser plugin. Sometimes, the link is incorrect; when I tried to cite a newspaper article and an encyclopedia, it didn’t recognize them and instead categorized them as “web pages”. Furthermore, using the browser add-in to cite A Companion to Digital Humanities cited the entire book, instead of the chapter. Although Zotero is a huge time-saver, it must be used with care.
Works Cited
Foucault, Michel. “Preface.” The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences, Vintage Books: A Division of Random House, Inc.
Ramsay, Stephen. “Databases.” Companion to Digital Humanities (Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture), by Susan Schreibman et al., Hardcover, Blackwell Publishing Professional, 2004, http://www.digitalhumanities.org/companion/.
Sperberg-McQueen, C. M. “Classification and Its Structures.” Companion to Digital Humanities (Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture), by Susan Schreibman et al., Hardcover, Blackwell Publishing Professional, 2004, http://www.digitalhumanities.org/companion/.
