POST: Topic Modeling Archival Materials

Thomas Padilla (Graduate Research Assistant, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) has written a brief post on using Topic Modeling Tool to aid with archival arrangement and description. Padilla reviews a test application of the popular text analysis technique to the Carl Woese Papers, finding that:

The University Archives’ application of topic modeling to the electronic files of Carl Woese demonstrates promise as an approach that shortens the time between acquisition and access while providing an alternative imposition of order on and meaning to a collection for scholars to navigate.

 

Author: Roxanne Shirazi

Roxanne is the Dissertation Research Librarian at the Graduate Center, CUNY.