A set of blog postings surrounding things called the Distant Reader and the Distant Reader Toolbox.
Yesterday I published a curated study carrel named On Government, and it was my first guided reading. I'm still not 100% sure about the validity and utility of the result. Keywords : guided reading; Source : This is the first instance of this essay.
In a simplified way, this blog posting describes show generative-AI does zero-shot classification works. Keywords : generative-AI; zero-shot classification; Source : This posting was originally written on June 8, 2026, probably for the Code4Lib mailing list.
Included here are a few thoughts on the topic of artificial intelligence in libraries. They are here to provide some context for an online conference call on the same topic. Keywords : generative-AI; Source : This document was written for an online forum dated July 2, 2026.
After a bit of experimentations, this text outlines ways LLM technology can be put to use in libraries. Keywords : generative-AI; Source : This was written May 29, 2026 for the Code4Lib mailing list, and through it I was accused of be evangelical.
This blog posting describes Reader Libraries. Keywords : Distant Reader; Source : This is the original posting of these ideas.
Reader Lite and Reader Luminaries are interactive indexes to seven different books from the Western canon. The use of Reader Lite and Reader Luminaries -- like the use of any other index -- enhance and supplement the traditional reading process. Use these tools to get a more thorough understanding of the books from which they are based. Keywords : indexes; RAG (retrieval-augmented generation);…
Reader Sentences is a software suite used to supplement the traditional reading process. This document... documents the software suite. Keywords : Distant Reader; readings; indexes; Source : This document is rooted in the REAME file of the corresponding GitHub repository at https://github.com/ericleasemorgan/reader-sentences/.
I have finished curating four Distant Reader study carrels: 1) Emma by Jane Austen, 2) The Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer, 3) Moby Dick by Herman Melville, and 4) Walden Pond by Henry David Thoreau. This blog posting outlines what I learned through the application of topic modeling. Keywords : Distant Reader; readings; Emma; Walden; Moby Dick; Iliad; Odyssey; Source : This is the original…
I wonder, what does Plato have to say about knowledge, and to what degree is knowledge an absolute? Keywords : readings; knowledge; Plato; Source : This posting is rooted in the index.html page of the corresponding curated study carrel -- curated-plato_and_knowledge-gutenberg.
For a good time, I thought would use distant reading computing techniques to define the word "intelligence", specifically, artificial intelligence. Keywords : intelligence; Source : The text of this posting was originally published in the Digital Humanities Slack channel, June 14, 2025.
If LLMs were not created with copyrighted materials, or, if LLMs were created with copyrighted materials, but access to the LLMs was limited only to authorized persons, then do you think the library community would be more amenable to their use? Keywords : generative-AI; Source : This posting was originally shared in the Code4Lib Slack channel, May 22, 2025.
I frequently create network graphs for the purposes of analyzing and visualizing corpora of narrative text. Network graphs, at their simplest, are composed of only two things, nodes and edges, where nodes are things and edges are relationships between those things. This missive outlines a few ways I use network graphs to do distant reading against corpora. Keywords : network graphs; Source : This…