UTSA Libraries presents the Sounds of San Anto: exploring how digital tools can enhance storytelling
Sounds of San Anto is a project created at UTSA Libraries’ digital humanities hub, CEDISH. It aims to present several different datasets on the history of music in San Antonio, Texas, to general audiences, using innovative data visualization and application design. In this presentation, we discuss two parts of the project. Part one is a GIS-based text analysis of the Mexican ballad (corrido) “El Corrido de Gregorio Cortez.” An NLP pipeline was used to perform named entity recognition (NER) on locations mentioned in the corrido, and to create a map providing geographical positions for ghost towns and incorporated municipalities in Texas. Part two uses the Mapbox API to display a dataset of 18 thousand historical concerts using the Mapbox API. Using best practices in application design, we created user requirements and Figma designs, used Python to transform the data from CSV to JSON, implemented the designs as a mobile-friendly web application, and used UX testing to refine the implementation. As a whole, the project explores the potential for innovative applications of programming in library-based digital humanities projects, aimed at general rather than academic audiences.