Twitter and Web Archive Analysis at Scale

Abstract

Born-digital sources, such as Twitter streams and archived web pages, have the potential to re-work scholarship in several crucial respects. The sheer volume of cultural information generated and, crucially, preserved every day presents exciting opportunities for historians, political scientists, sociologists, and other scholars. Since 2015, the Web Archives for Historical Research group at the University of Waterloo and York University has been developing, testing, and using tools to explore wide swaths of our collective cultural heritage. In 2017, Waterloo and York received a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to develop the “Archives Unleashed” project, a set of tools for web and social media analysis.

This day and a half workshop presents a series of Twitter and Web Archive analysis tools for researchers to use. On Day 1(half day), in the afternoon, Nick Ruest (Digital Assets Librarian, York University) will run a hands-on workshop on Twitter analysis (using both the twarc tool and the Archives Unleashed Toolkit). On Day 2, in the morning, Ian Milligan (Associate Professor of History, University of Waterloo) will run an Archives Unleashed workshop on web archiving analysis, using collections form Simon Fraser University. Finally, in the afternoon, participants will have the tools and resources to work on independent projects, with support from Ruest and Milligan.

Date
Location
Burnaby, Canada
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Nick Ruest
Associate Librarian