Political science, governance, and international affairs: Digital humanities

Tools

Adobe Audition (2011, Adobe Systems): Adobe's full-featured tool for audio recording and editing.

Adobe Premiere Pro (2011, Adobe Systems): Adobe's robust video editing software.

Audacity (2000, Audacity): Free, open source, cross-platform audio editing and recording software.**

Camtasia (2002, TechSmith): Screen recorder and video editing software.

DaVinci Resolve (2004, Blackmagic Design): Robust video editing software for visual effects and audio post-production that has a full-featured free version.*

How we can help

The Library Studios provide free access to advanced hardware and software where you can record audio and video and edit media using installed software. You can visit the Studios page to further explore the spaces available to you. 

Newman Library houses both the Media Recording Studio and Media Production Suites to facilitate the creation and editing of audio and visual projects.

The Studios Technology Lending Desk offers various pieces of equipment for members of the Virginia Tech campus community to checkout for free.

Tools

Adobe Express (2016, Adobe Systems): A free online design and photo editing tool to create social posts, images, videos, flyers, and more. 

Adobe Illustrator (2011, Adobe Systems): Adobe's tool to create graphics and vector art.

Adobe Photoshop (2011, Adobe Systems): Adobe's tool  to edit, composite, and create images and art. 

Canva (2012, Canva Inc.) A free-to-use online graphic design tool.*

GIMP (1996, GIMP Development Team): An open-source cross-platform image editor.**

Inkscape (2003): An open-source vector graphics editor.**

Processing (2001, Casey Reas and Ben Fry): An open-source software sketchbook and language for learning how to code within the context of the visual arts.**

How we can help

The Library Studios provide free access to advanced hardware and software where you can access Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. You can reserve a time at the Media Production Studios on the 4th floor of Newman Library. 

Blender (2002, Blender Foundation): Free and open source 3D creation suite.**

Maya (1998, Autodesk): 3D animation, modeling, simulation, and rendering software provides an integrated, powerful toolset.

MudBox (2005, Autodesk): Digital painting and sculpting software.

SketchUp (1999, Trimble Inc.): 3D modeling computer program for a wide range of drawing applications.*

Tinkercad (2011, Autodesk): A free web-based 3D digital modeling tool that allows you to create shapes and models.*

Unreal Engine (1995, Epic Games): A cross-platform 3D computer graphics game engine.

Unity 3D (2005, Unity Technologies): A cross-platform 3D computer graphics game engine.

How we can help

The Library houses a number of studios to facilitate projects that involve game development, virtual reality, and 3D modeling, as well as providing consultations on using tools and software to for projects in these areas.

The Gaming Studio on the 4th floor of Newman Library is the Library's newest studio, providing a space to develop, play, and study games.

The Virtual Environments Studio facilitates the full range of experiences for people interested in immersive environments.

The 3D Scanning Studio and Prototyping Studio provides tools and expertise to digitize real-world objects and create physical projects.

Cytoscape (2002, Institute for Systems Biology): An open-source software platform for visualizing complex networks and integrating these with any type of attribute data.**

Gephi (2008, Mathieu Bastian): An open-source network analysis and visualization software package**

Kumu (2011, Kumu Inc.): Organize complex data into compelling visualizations such as system maps, stakeholder maps, data visualization, lombardi diagrams, and organization charts.*

Network Navigator (2017, John Ladd and Zoe LeBlanc): A light-weight web app designed to give you a first glimpse of your network data, with both metrics and visualizations.

Hypothesis (2011, Hypothesis Project): An online tool for annotating the web.**

oXygen (1998, SyncRO Soft Ltd.): A suite of XML authoring, editing, and development tools.*

Recogitio (2019, Pelagios) An online platform for collaborative document annotation. It allows you to upload texts and images and collaboratively create annotations, identify and map places in your documents, and export your data to open-source formats for use with other tools.**

TextGrid (2012, DARIAH-DE): A virtual research environment for the humanities that is optimized for working with TEI-coded resources and covers the entire research process up to publication.

Voyant (2003, Stéfan Sinclair and Geoffrey Rockwel): a web-based reading and analysis environment for digital texts.**

Archive-It (2006, Internet Archive): A subscription web archiving service created for larger organizations.

Heritrix (2004, Internet Archive): A web crawler designed for web archiving.**

Wayback Machine (2001, Internet Archive): A digital archive of the World Wide Web and other information on the Internet.**

Webrecorder (2016): A suite of open-source projects and tools to capture interactive websites and replay them at a later time as accurately as possible.**

Perma.cc (2013, Harvard’s Library Innovation Lab): A service to provide archiving of web pages for research purposes.  Researchers at Virginia Tech are able to archive, manage, and annotate an unlimited number of web pages with persistent shortlinks for citing, create multiple users with access to the same folders, and receive local support. See the Perma.cc LibGuide for more information.**

Digital Projects Tools

VT Domains (A program at Virginia Tech): This program provides opportunities for faculty and students to explore publishing or web hosting by providing easy-to-use tools and quick access to hosting capabilities. Each faculty member and student can have their own hosting package where they can host files, web development projects, or applications like WordPress.

Omeka (2008, Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media(CHNM) at George Mason University): a web publishing platform for sharing digital collections and creating media-rich online exhibits.**

Reclaim Hosting (2013, Tim Owens and Jim Groom): provides educators and institutions with an easy way to offer their students domains and web hosting that they own and control.

Scalar (Alliance for Networking Visual Culture): open source authoring and publishing platform that’s designed to make it easy for authors to write long-form, born-digital scholarship online.**

WordPress (General) (2003, WordPress Foundation): open source software you can use to create a beautiful website, blog, or app.**

How we can help

Students, faculty, and staff can take advantage of the VTDomains program by completing a request form for an account. With VT Domains you can create digital projects on WordPress, Omeka, Scalar, Mukurtu, and more.

Virginia Tech Publishing offers individual consultations to help with specific technological questions or needs. Reach out to publishing@vt.edu or book a consult for Digital Humanities Project Support on the Library website. For more information on Omeka, see the Omeka LibGuide.

The Library regularly offers workshops on Scalar, WordPress, and Omeka. Check the Library Events page for dates, further information, and registration.

Open-source Online Publications

Manifold (2018, a collaboration between CUNY Graduate Center, University of Minnesota Press, and Cast Iron Coding): collaborative, open-source platform for scholarly publishing that supports a multitude of multimedia**

PressBooks (developed by Hugh McGuire): book writing software that lets you create a book in all the formats you need to publish**

How we can help

Virginia Tech Publishing supports scholarly book and manuscript publishing with Manifold and PressBooks. Check the publishing website for book proposal guidelines. 

If you want to utilize these tools to create classroom materials, we can answer specific questions. Reach out to publishing@vt.edu.

Data cleaning

OpenRefine (2010, Metaweb Technologies, Inc.): An open-source desktop application for data cleanup and transformation to other formats.**

Breve (2015, Humanities + Design at Stanford University): A tool for meta-visualization of tabular data with editing built in. Tabular data can be difficult to read. Breve reveals mis-matched values, datatypes, and missing values at a glance.**

Data visualization

Datawrapper (2012): Make charts, maps, and tables and export to a website or download a file.*

Palladio (2014, Humanities + Design at Stanford University): An online tool designed to help you visualize complex historical data. It enables the rapid visualization of data in maps and networks.**

StoryLine JS (Northwestern University Knight Lab): An open-source tool that enables anyone to build an annotated, interactive line chart with data.**

Tableau Public (2003, Tableau): A free platform to explore, create and publicly share data visualizations online.*

TimeLine JS (Northwestern University Knight Lab): An open-source tool that enables anyone to build visually rich, interactive timelines.**

RAWGraphs (2013, DensityDesign Research Lab): An open-source tool for data visualization that helps to link data in spreadsheets to vector graphic editors such as Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape, and Figma.**

Data and coding

D3 (2011, Observable): A JavaScript library for interactive data visualizations.**

JupyterLab (2014, Project Jupyter): A web-based interactive development environment for notebooks, code, and data that is widely used for data analysis in Python.**

Positron (2024, Posit): An open-source integrated development environment for data science in R and Python.**

Python (1991): A widely-used programming language for data cleaning, analysis, and visualization.**

R (1993): A programming language developed for statistical computing and graphics that is specifically designed to work with the kinds of rectangular data (like spreadsheets) most commonly found in the Humanities.**

RStudio (2011, Posit): An open-source integrated development environment for R.**

How we can help

The Library regularly offers workshops on working with data through the Carpentries, a worldwide organization that focuses on teaching foundational coding and data skills. Workshops on getting started with R and Python are offered throughout the semester. Workshops on working with spreadsheets and OpenRefine are taught before each semester.

The Library also regularly offers workshops on integrating the Knight Lab visualization tools with Omeka.

Check the Library Events page for dates, further information, and registration.

Tools

ArcGIS at VT (1999, Esri):  Virginia Tech's subscription to the ArcGIS software, a geographic information system for working with maps and geographic information. ArcGIS Online, is a cloud-based mapping and analysis solution that members of Virginia Tech have access to.

Neatline (2009, Scholar's Lab at the University of Virginia Library): A set of tools for Omeka that allows scholars, students, and curators to tell stories with maps, images and timelines.**

OpenStreetMap (2004, OpenStreetMap Foundation): A map of the world, created by by a community of mappers that contribute and maintain data about roads, trails, cafés, railway stations, and much more, all over the world.**

QGIS (2009): An open-source desktop GIS application available on Windows, Mac, and Linux that serves as an alternative to ArcGIS.**

Padlet (2012, Nitesh Goel and Pranav Piyush): An education-focused web platform in which users can upload, organize, and share content to maps and other virtual bulletin boards.*

StoryMap JS (Northwestern University Knight Lab): A Free tool to help you tell stories on the web that highlight the locations of a series of events.**

How we can help

Geospatial Data Services provides introductory geospatial education and mapping services at VT Library. Find more information about available services on our Geospatial Mapping Services at Virginia Tech LibGuide.

The Library regularly offers workshops on ArcGIS Online and integrating the Knight Lab visualization tools with Omeka. Check the Library Events page for dates, further information, and registration.