After reading Fred’s proposal about R (and now Lincoln’s about scripting languages), I’ve been thinking about how much DH is focused on the analysis of text. This is understandable, given the interests and backgrounds of most people involved in the community, but I’d like to have a discussion of other areas in which community members are interested and are producing innovative work. This could include a conversation about trends and new directions in DH, which would be great for us newbies who are trying to get a sense of where this field is headed.

I can think of a few non-textual areas that seem to get a fair share of attention. That would be with geographical information and images, with Trevor’s proposal as an example of the latter. Is anyone doing work that’s even more original? Two more examples that come to mind are William Turkel’s work with sound and Kathryn Tomasek’s with financial information, though the latter might fit more into the text-centric mold. Regardless, if you’re working on an original project, non-textual or otherwise, let’s meet and share. We might discover new directions to take DH.

Of course, we should also talk about the technologies that are driving our new projects. What programming language or application are you using? Have you had success with an application that hasn’t had much attention?