Literary analysis is based on a close reading of the text, but the digitizing of vast libraries of fiction by Google may be giving rise to a "distant reading" model; that is to say a nearly statistical study of entire eras of literature to determine shifts, beginnings, and trends in the evolution of writing. This movement away from "anecdotal" analysis to "data-digging" raises as many questions as it might answer.
"The Humanities Go Google", an article in a recent Chronicle of Higher Education, explores the potential and pitfalls of this new window on research. One aspect is that "reading" becomes a collaborative effort as English majors team with computer code-writers to develop algorithms that mine digital libraries for compelling data.
Early obstacles include the fact that Google's effort at digitization was designed thinking that people would read one book at a time, not that they would want to manipulate and sift entire holdings for analysis. The metadata that accompanies (or, more pointedly, doesn't) each digital text is notably lacking in classification; causing large-scale headaches (Librarian, anyone?).
That said, the idea itself - analyzing entire eras of literature to identify literary trends -marks yet another revolutionary spike in the idea of research and collaboration driven by open-minded individuals and open-ended technology.
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