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Digital Discovery


One of the many advantages of a digital edition is the opportunity to apply research tools to the underlying information (the correspondence), and to add visualisation to the words contained in the letters.

Elizabeth Montagu Yorkshire Places Mapping Project

[Allerthorpe Hall map location]

[Allerthorpe Hall image]

We have begun this with a project that maps places in Yorkshire that are associated with the Montagu and Robinson families. This combines an interactive map with photographs taken by our own researchers, Rhiannon Parker-Nicholls and Joanna Barker, and links them with the relevant letters and entries in our biographical database. The customised software developed for this project by Alexander Roberts, our Technical Consultant, provides a platform for similar geographical analysis in future.

View the Elizabeth Montagu Yorkshire Places Mapping Project


 

Elizabeth Montagu and Isabelle de Charrière / Belle van Zuylen dynamic bipartite data visualisation pilot

Charriere Picture

[Belle van Zuylen/Isabelle de Charrière (1740-1805)]

[Example of the Elizabeth Montagu and Isabelle de Charrière/Belle van Zuylen visualization]

In collaboration with the Correspondance d’Isabelle de Charrière / Brieven van Belle van Zuylen Project and Dr Daniel Archambault and Kasper Krawczyk at the Computational Foundry, Swansea University; we have developed a dynamic bipartite data visualisation pilot that captures Elizabeth Montagu’s and de Charrière’s social connections through time. This temporal graph offers perspectives on how the epistolary networks of both prominent salonnières developed and changed throughout the period investigated, and furthermore if there are overlapping contacts or communities. In terms of network analysis, the pilot used epistolary networks (letters as edges) to identify a temporal interaction pattern between the correspondents (users as nodes). The user can slow down the time line, choose a group of correspondents to identify direct or indirect (through mentions in letters) contacts between Elizabeth Montagu and Continental social networks.

This project was generously supported by the British Academy and the Correspondance d'Isabelle de Charrierè.

Read a description of the project and its methodology

View the Elizabeth Montagu and Isabelle de Charrière Connections Visualization

Further digital research projects based on the EMCO digital edition will follow.


Please note that all dates and location information are provisional, initially taken from the library and archive catalogues. As our section editors continue to work through the material we will update our database and the changes will be reflected across the edition.

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