Taking Your First Steps into Digital Mapping with Ted Racicot
Over the past year, I was the graduate assistant for USM's Center for Digital Humanities (CDH). While much of my time in this position was spent helping faculty, students, and our regional partners with their own projects, this position also gave me time to explore DH tools that would help me advance my own research. I chose to focus on mapping technologies because faculty and students often ask about these and they fit my research needs. While much of my exploration was valuable, it was also frustrating as I struggled to find the right tool for my project and knew I wasn't alone. This post is designed to help those who have similar DH needs, but don't have the time to explore the various platforms and who may be intimidated by the more complex options. It focuses on two of the programs that I found most compelling for users with little-to-no background in Digital Humanities, and I hope it helps you.
Storymap: An Introduction to Digital Storytelling
Ted Racicot is a second-year PhD student in History at USM. His research focuses on the intersection of popular culture and war and his dissertation explores British music halls during the First World War. He served as the CDH’s Graduate Assistant for the 2022-23 school year.
The CDH gets regular queries about beginner mapping programs - something that's easy for classroom use, provides quick results, and isn't intimidating for novice DH-ers. One of the best tools for these needs, and one of the first programs that I explored this year, is Storymap. This is free, open-source software designed to allow users to make simple, yet visually compelling digital maps. It is part of Northwestern University’s Knight Lab, which has several other open-source software that can be used for digital humanities, including Timeline and Storyline. One of the biggest benefits of Storymap and the other Knight Lab programs is that they are completely free to use. While many similar mapping programs are free to try, many features are hidden behind a subscription wall. Furthermore, Storymap, unlike many other digital humanities programs, does not require any prior coding or GIS knowledge. While Storymap may seem simplistic to some, the lack of subscription costs and accessibility of the program for beginners makes it a great first step into the world of digital humanities.
These features make Storymap especially well-suited for classroom use. It can be used in conjunction with, or it can replace, traditional assignments. While creating a project with Storymap allows students to practice many of the skills they showcase in a traditional historical essay—such as analyzing and tying together multiple primary sources to support an argument—it also allows students to practice new skills overlooked in a traditional essay. In particular, it challenges students to think about how they can create a project that is geared more towards the public, while still being academically rigorous. An example of a project description utilized by CDH director Dr. Susannah J. Ural can be found here.
Storymap is also an effective tool beyond the classroom, helping with in-person and online presentations. It can provide useful visualizations that can enhance viewers' sense of the location of specific events. It is also very easy to embed onto WordPress or Squarespace websites, making it a great, simple addition that enhances the research or teaching portions of your personal website. If you want to see how a Storymap looks when embedded on a webpage, you can check out an example from Georgia Humanities here.
The biggest downside of Storymap is that it only works well with small-scale projects. It is recommended that users keep their maps to under 20 items, which eliminates large-scale mapping projects. Furthermore, users have very limited control over the format of the map itself. Beyond changing the background color, there is very little that users can do to customize their maps, which may be frustrating for some with a specific vision of how they want their map to appear.
Maphub: A Mapping Alternative
While Storymap is great for smaller projects, I wanted to find a program that could handle a larger data set but was still as beginner-friendly as Storymap. This led me to MapHub. In many ways, MapHub is a foil to Storymap, shining in the exact areas where Storymap falls short. Rather than being a very qualitative form of mapping for a few select items, MapHub is a great first step into mapping for large-scale projects. Unlike Storymap, there are no limitations on how many items can be mapped using Maphub. It also makes mapping these items incredibly simple. For large datasets, users can have their maps automatically generated by importing a CSV file from MS Excel as long as they have the coordinates for each point. However, if that is intimidating for people just getting started, items can be simply added and dragged to locations on the map, making it very user-friendly for people with absolutely no background in DH or mapping. While not quite as visually appealing as Storymap, getting an engaging, clean-looking map is still rather simple. Below is an example of a map put together by the CDH through our partnership with the Mississippi Department of Archives and History for their “Digital Snapshot” of the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission. We wanted to include a map at the website, but we needed something that the MDAH team could easily update down-the-road should they need to maintain their own site.
Preview of a MapHub map designed by the CDH for MDAH’s “Digital Snapshot” on the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission Collection
There are a few downsides to MapHub, however. First, unlike Storymap, there is a free version, but it is rather limited. While MapHub does allow users to add images to each point on their map, the free version limits the number of images to 12. Similarly, while users can change the appearance of the base map, this is once again limited. If you want to add more images or utilize your own base map—perhaps a historical map of the era you're portraying—you will need to pay a subscription of $7 per month.
Keep in mind that when it comes to the world of digital mapping, programs like Storymap and MapHub are just the tip of the iceberg. What platform works best for you comes down to the exact nature and needs of your project. For more narratively focused projects that utilize various types of media designed by a novice DH-er, Storymap is a great way to present information digitally. However, for a more data-heavy project that can sacrifice some visual appeal, MapHub is a solid alternative for large-scale interactive maps. Regardless, both programs are very user-friendly, making them both great options for professors and students looking to get into digital humanities despite lacking fundamental technical skills. Once you master these, the options are endless. Large data projects will want to explore the wide-array of mapping features offered by ArcGIS or the free version, QGIS. Another great option is ArcGIS StoryMaps discussed in an earlier CDH blog post. I hope you enjoy exploring, and feel free to come by the CDH with any questions.
