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A new project from the Digital Scholarship Commons provides analysis of an archive of 10 million tweets from the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Since 13 October 2011, Emory University Library has collected over ten million tweets from the Occupy Wall Street Movement. For the anniversary of the first day of the Fall 2011 demonstrations, DiSC created a site that provides some visualizations of the tweets—heat maps, word clouds, and charts—as well some analysis.

We encourage you to take a look, share with friends, and let us know what you think.

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DiSC's Fall Workshop series kicks off with Managing Your Digital Assets on Monday, September 17 at Noon.

 Digital assets—all those documents and files you gather and analyze for your research—often proliferate at exponential rates. At this workshop, Data Managment Specialist Jen Doty will offer guidance on useful practices for wrangling your data, including demonstrations of tools that work across platforms. Please bring your preferred mobile device (laptop, tablet, smartphone).

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Although journal articles are often the most visible products of research studies, the data underlying those articles are in themselves important sources of information.  The careful documentation, preservation, and sharing of research data not only prevents unnecessary duplication of research efforts, but also may lead to new discoveries. That data, however, is difficult to share if it exists only on an external hard drive in a desk drawer.

To promote the preservation and sharing of data, many major funding agencies, including the NSF, NIH, and NEH, now require a data management plan(DMP) as a component of grant proposals. In a DMP, researchers can formulate strategies for storing their data while their study is in progress, preserving their data long-term for the scholarly record, sharing their data with others, and describing or documenting their data to make them computer-readable and meaningful in the future.

To assist Emory researchers with the preparation of DMPs, the Research Data Management group at Robert W. Woodruff Library now offers use of the DMPTool. This free online tool, which is a service of the University of California Curation Center and the California Digital Library, allows Emory researchers to create, save, and revisit their DMPs by logging in with their Emory network ID and password. The DMPTool also provides helpful information and links for each component of the plan.

Need further assistance in preparing a DMP or general guidance on how to manage research data? Contact the Research Data Management group at dataplans@emory.edu.

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Eamon Grennan was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1941. After receiving his B.A. and M.A. from University College in Dublin, Grennan moved to the United States to attend graduate school at Harvard University. He earned his Ph.D. in 1973 and began teaching at Vassar College the following year. Grennan continued to teach English at Vassar until his retirement in 2004. During his career, Grennan has published twelve volumes of collected poetry in addition to the large number of poems published in journals and magazines such as The New Yorker. Grennan has also been involved in editing volumes on Irish poetry and translating others' works.

MARBL staff are in the final stages of arranging and describing Grennan's personal papers, which include a bit of correspondence, manuscript and typescript drafts of his poetry, drafts of prose pieces and translations, notebooks, diaries and printed material. One of the most interesting things about the collection is the evidence of Grennan's writing process. Often with literary archives, evidence of a writer's process gets lost over time. However, Grennan's papers are unique in that his process is apparent in the numerous drafts present for each poem and each collection. Materials for most collected works include folders titled "Towards [work]," as well as other files that show his early efforts at crafting a collection. Many works also include multiple typescript drafts of the collection, some with up to four variant titles, indicating the amount of thought and care that Grennan puts into the writing of his work. Researchers using this collection will be able to track the work of the poet virtually from the birth of an idea through the final stages of the publishing process.

The collection also includes much evidence of Grennan's close ties to the literary community. Grennan not only wrote and published poetry but also wrote reviews of other poets' works. His strong relationship with his colleagues can be seen in the inscriptions of poems sent to him. Poets, including Paul Muldoon, Peter Fallon, Chuck O'Neil, and Dana Gioia, sent him copies of their work with kind words. His relationships with editors and other members of the literary community can also be seen in his correspondence, particularly in letters between Grennan and publisher Peter Fallon.

The papers will be re-opened to researchers early next week.

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SWAG Diplomacy via Viewshare

Correspondence from Imogene Hoyle to Amaryllis Bomar,
"Atlanta is very dull now.", June 30, 1863[?], Bomar Family Papers

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While MARBL holds a significant amount of letters to and from soldiers in the Civil War between families and friends, it is also important to note the epistolary conversations that happened between those who stayed at home. A collection of letters in the Bomar Family Papers here in MARBL is a peek inside life for young women during a war that came so close to home.

Amaryllis Bomar was the daughter of Dr. Benjamin F. and Sarah E. Lumpkin Hayne Bomar. Dr. Bomar settled his family in Atlanta when Amaryllis was very young. Upon arriving in Atlanta, Bomar ceased practicing medicine and opened up a general store on Whitehall Street. He was elected a member of the first Atlanta City Council in 1848 and became the city's second mayor in 1849. He also started the Atlanta Intelligencer, one of the city's earliest newspapers. 

Amaryllis was a teenager during the Civil War, and most of the letters in the Bomar Family Papers are addressed to her. Some of the most interesting, which tell of life as a young woman in Atlanta, come from her friend Imogene Hoyle. The Hoyles were another prominent family in the city at this time. Both families refugeed to towns outside of Atlanta during 1864 and some of the letters document this period. 

You can really see the difference a year makes when you view letters from the summer of 1863 alongside those from the fall of 1864. Imogene writes in June, 1863 that "Atlanta is very dull now." She also mentions a young man who "inquired very particularly about [Amaryllis]." This letter is lively and light and talks about the goings on in the city and how "there's plenty of gossip going around."

The mood changes significantly, however, by letters from the summer and fall of 1864. In a letter dated June 28, 1864, Imogene talks about the family's difficult flight from Atlanta. "I had a hard time getting out of Atlanta and had almost come to the conclusion that the Yankees would get me in spite of every thing." Her family ended up refugeeing in Sandersville, GA and a number of her following letters are sent from there. 

There are definite pangs of homesickness in the letters, most significantly in one from November 16, 1864 when Imogene writes, while discussing a newly acquired piano, "Our favorite song is 'Take Me Back to Atlanta' and when I strike that, every one in the place joins in, both black and white. Ama, what do you think!" She also talks about teaching someone to play the piano, most specifially "'Dixie' for the troops to march home by, when peace is declared."

The letters continue on into 1865 as the girls exchange news about wounded soldiers and where their loved ones have been stationed. They continue, though, to retain a somewhat lighthearted air as love interests and gossip are discussed as well. 

Though the collection of letters is small (there are only ten written by Imogene to Amaryllis) they span a significant time period for Atlanta. Their importance, as well, is in the fascinating way they offer a glance inside life for young women in the South during the incredible upheaval of the Civil War.