For data cleaning, the lab has OpenRefine which can help you organize data in spreadsheet format by faceting, clustering, and reformatting information. For one type of quantitative text analysis, the programming language R for statistical computing and the programming environment Rstudio can be used to break down and quantify a corpus of texts.

Each lab computer has the most up-to-date version of QGIS. This is a mapping program which uses a relational database to incorporate metadata with each point placed. Texas Tech has available licenses for ArcGIS as well. If you would like to use ArcGIS, please contact the assistant director about setting up a license.

The lab computers are equipped with MariaDB to create relational databases or data recorded in tables of metadata related to a particular category or header. The database structure makes it easy to search for information or present pieces of information. Other database structure or software can be added upon request.

The eXtensible Mark-Up Language (XML) is one of the most widely used markup languages for creating digital scholarly editions. It is typically used following the Text Encoding Initiative's (TEI) guidelines. Lab computers are equipped with Notepad++ which can be used for editing XML. Contact the assistant director if you are interested in licenses for the editor Oxygen for your project.

Optical character recognition (OCR) uses machine learning to recognize letter forms and produce a file of the text it has recognized. This text file can then be mapped onto an image or PDF file to have a searchable scan. For high-quality, easy-to-read scans, Adobe Acrobat’s OCR function can quickly and easily make a searchable scan. For lower-quality or image scans, the command line program Tesseract can OCR images and map the text onto a PDF. For very low-quality scans, contact the assistant director for assistance with pre-processing techniques.

The digital exhibit platform Omeka is a powerful way to both catalog digital artifacts with extensive metadata and to present artifacts in engaging pathways with additional information.

For a simple website, the lab computers are equipped with Notepad++ to edit Hypertext MarkUp Language (HTML) documents which can be customized with content, links, and images. For a sleek, static site, the program Jekyll can transform a plain text page into a web page. There are a variety of pre-designed templates for personal websites, digital scholarly editions, digital exhibits, teaching sites, and more.