Search Paul Stirling's Fieldnotes

Search Paul Stirling's Fieldnotes 1949-1986

Title

Search Paul Stirling's Fieldnotes 1949-1986

URL

http://grok.anthropology.ac.uk/agsrv/notesvindex.html

Brief Description

An example of using topic clouds to assist searching fieldnotes

Description

Paul Stirling created an online resource of his fieldnotes spanning almost four decades. This application explores how automatically generated and weighted topic maps might assist searching fieldnotes.

Field Note Search

This is an application built on several services. The main service does the actual search, according to either posting an HTML form or an XML record. The search returns the matched records as well as keywords extracted from the search with an index that can be used to create metrics like the cloud tag. Since the search engine does not require an index, nor a particular structure other than a record separator, it can be used on a wide variety of texts from a variety of sources.

Currently the fieldnotes available include

• a major set produced by the late Prof. Paul Stirling, who worked in rural Turkey for nearly 50 years. The current set covers the period from 1949 to 1986, and includes two volumes produced by his wife in 1950.
• a short set of fieldnotes by Dr. Wenonah Lyon from 1992 in Lahore Pakistan.
• an analytic summary of two years of fieldnotes by Prof. Michael Fischer during 1982 and 1983. These can be selected in the current application by the first option select.

Shortly, you will be able to search your own fieldnotes using this application, either from your own desktop, by attaching them to a page or by adding them to a secure repository on this site.

Discussion