Mapping in the Digital Humanities is a valuable tool for researchers to look for patterns and trends across space. Todd Presner and David Shepard, in their article Mapping the Geospatial Turn (2016), state, “On its most basic level, a map is a kind of visualization that uses levels of abstraction, scale, coordinate systems, perspective, symbology, and other forms of representation to convey a set of relations.” (Presner and Shepard 247). Researchers can use those patterns and trends to gather meaning and understanding about the material they are researching. There are different ways that researchers use these maps to find patterns and form meanings, including “historical mapping of ‘time-layers’ to memory maps, linguistic and cultural mapping, conceptual mapping, community-based mapping, and forms of counter-mapping that attempt to de-ontologize cartography and imagine new worlds.” (Presner and Shepard 247).

There have been many projects that have used maps to find trends and show meaning in the material that they present. One such project is the Photogrammar project. The Photogrammar project, created and updated from 2012 to 2016, is a website showcasing photographs from the FSA-OWI archive. The program “began as a response to the challenges of navigating the digital and physical archive at the LoC [Library of Congress]” (Arnold 2). The project uses what they call “generous interfaces” to help gather meaning using different modes of visualization. (Arnold 3). Another project that uses maps is the Histories of the National Mall. This project is a website that uses Google Maps to place markers around the National Mall in Washington, D.C. These markers are important buildings, statues, monuments, and areas that hold historical significance in the city and country. Sheila Brennan states, “Our key strategy for making the history of the National Mall engaging for tourists was to populate the website with surprising and compelling stories and primary sources that together build a textured historical context for the space and how it has changed over time.” (Brennan). Mapping the Gay Guides is another project that uses maps to find trends and patterns in their material. The project uses a popular, life-saving book called Bob Damron’s Address Book to place markers on a map of all the bars mentioned in that book to find those trends and patterns. Some of the different topics explored in the project tackle race, gender, and sexuality with each topic containing trends and meanings from the material and map. (Regan and Gonzaba).

When using maps with the Kepler model I was surprised with what I could discover from the material. I have only used maps once before in my projects, and they were simple Google Maps, like with the Histories of the National Mall, and I only did a little analysis with them. Working with Kepler changed my perspective on using maps for research. Even a simple point map can show information about relationships between the different points. However, there is so much more a map can do. This includes cluster and heat maps which can show quantity and density which a point map lacks. A timeline can be added to a map to show how that area and material changed over time. There is much more that a map can show that can give a researcher more information about the material they have presented.