Text Mining for Librarians: Opportunities and Challenges

Although it began in the digital humanities, text mining is becoming increasingly common in other disciplines. Text mining is the process of using software to analyze and investigate text documents to find patterns and concepts. It provides new opportunities for librarians to support researchers as well as engage in their own research. The session will provide an overview of the basics of text mining, how it is being used in current research, and the tools available both free and fee-based. The discussion will continue with potential sources of text to use, looking at text that is both freely available and that which is available through licenses. The presenters will cover the challenges of working with licensed material and the expertise and experience that electronic resource librarians can contribute. Finally the presenters will discuss examples of text mining projects and the session will wrap up with a hands on exploration of a free web based text mining tool. For those who wish to participate in the hands on section please bring a personal device. Bring Your Own Device session.