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Tams analyzer mac download3/16/2023 The camera is mounted on a tripod on a desk closest to the window in the Sala de Investigadores. I’m using a Canon PowerShot SX10IS, which is 10mp and has a 20x optical zoom and 8gb SD card. I will look at the index of a box, chose cases based on their descriptions, pull those cases and photograph them. OK, so I also include the occasional pedestrian assault case just for good measure. The archive workflow looks like this now– I’m cataloguing criminal cases that deal with insults, sexual improprieties, and murders. I can go back, if need be, to docs because I have them– stored in as many places as possible. With the digital images, I’m not limited to the bits of transcription that seemed important in the early stages of research. I missed things that eventually I would come to deem central to a project. When simply working transcribing in the archive, I used to find myself only noting the info that I thought was important at that stage of the investigation. What is more, while processing these thousands of images through transcription and analysis still takes a very long time– the ability to wade through large numbers of documents changes one’s impression of what the documents contain in a much shorter time frame than if it all had to be done in the archive. I can carry back to the states 10s of 1000s of manuscript pages based on short stays (which helps when one has a family, or when research monies are hard to come by). Digital photographs are of such high quality that they are superior to microfilm, 35mm pics, photocopies, etc., and they are also imminently more portable. What changes, though, is the scale of information and the time required for collection. OK, well not wholly new– people for years have been utilizing this same documentary record to write histories of Quito and the Andes. Why so many photos, anyway? Well, the combination of digital photography, database programs like DEVONthink, and QDA applications like TAMS Analyzer or NVIVO open up wholly new possibilities for research. The guides are helpful, in that I can more quickly plan my attack for picture taking. That is always the catch, especially in a country like Ecuador where $$ is tight in the best of years.įor now, I’m just concentrating on working through boxes. (Of course, this is only the case if an individual shows up as a primary target/litigant in a document.) The work of the archive staff in accomplishing these guides is very impressive, and will continue pending funding. With DEVONthink, it will be easy to track names, making a dent in the sometimes maddening practice of prosopography. What interests me most about this is the potential ability to cross reference trends in very different sections of the archive – Gobierno, Indigenas, Criminales, Cedulas, Real Ordenes, Estancos, etc., etc. Conversion to plain text would be a fairly simple task, and easy grist for the text mining mill. Granted, the pdf is not the most useful format for doing digital text analysis– but the files come pdf+text ready. More importantly, it will be possible to see clusters of types of litigation, or in topics of royal decrees, and the like in specific epochs. With that information and a culling together of pdfs for (eventually) all of the series, investigators will have a really powerful means to search the archive prior to going. The guides are invaluable- as they include some form of metadata on every folder in the series, including date, place, number of folios, and a description of the contents of the piece. I’m going to talk to them about making the finders guides available online in pdf format as well. The Archivo Nacional has produced a number of guides for various series of the archive, some of which are now also available as pdf files on CD. Total manuscript pages = probably boxes processed = 31
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