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Introduction: Airtable for Digital Humanities

Low-Code Databases

One of the foundational digital humanities (DH) tools is the relational database. By structuring data so people, objects, and events can relate to each other, we open up new avenues of inquiry and analysis. However, traditional relational database management systems have a high barrier of entry, requiring knowledge of server hosting, the command line, and SQL.

An emerging area of data tools are low/no-code platforms for creating databases, which remove some technical barriers required to create, store, and share structured data. In addition, these platforms often come with a suite of features for collaboration, project management, and reporting that make them attractive for use in team-based research environments.

This resource will explore using Airtable for digital humanities projects, recognizing the importance of tools that are accessible for research teams with various levels of technical knowledge.

This is not to say that Airtable is only a tool for those without a programming background. The platform also supports API access and robust automation features, making it possible to integrate with other data tools. I will only touch on these topics in this guide, but if you're looking for guidance on incorporating Airtable into a larger tech stack, I highly recommend William K. Dewey's "Using Airtable to download and parse Digital Humanities Data" published in the Code4Lib Journal.

Aside: Another Digital Humanitites Tool?

As demonstrated by the proliferation of resources listing the ever-increasing number of DH tools, today's DH practitioners have no shortage of technologies to support their work.

Despite the value of these resources, the decision to adopt a tool for an individual project is rarely straight forward. The technologies used by a DH project have long-term implications on its development, management, and preservation needs. Thus, use of any tool requires a balance of complex considerations:

  • What are the technological skills of my team members and collaborators?
  • What is the learning curve of the tool?
  • What labor is required to set up and maintain the tool?
  • How does the tool interact with other components of our technical stack?
  • Does the tool support collaboration? Or is it designed for individual users?
  • How expensive is the tool?
  • Is the tool well-supported? Does it have an active community of users?
  • Is there lock in? How easy is it to move to another tool in the future?
  • Are there privacy or security concerns?

All of this is to say that no tool is right for everyone.

By creating this resource on using Airtable in the digital humanities, I hope to encourage a critical engagement with the platform – understanding its value as a low-code, collaborative database platform while acknowledging its venture capital funding model and increasing incorporation of AI, as well as the broader impact of cloud computing and the pernicious effects of productivity software.

Airtable is not a digital humanities platform, so its use must be considered within the wider context of a project's needs and the technical and infrastructural support provided by our institutions and the field at large.

Critical Perspectives on DH Tools

Acknowledgements

This project was created for Claudia Berger's Digital Humanities course at Pratt Institute's School of Information.

Thank you to all of my colleagues on the Virulent Hate Project. Your countless hours of testing and feedback on our own Airtable database have been instrumental in the development of this resource. And a special thank you to Josh Gibson, who has provided essential guidance on database and web development.

This tutorial is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).