Under the workbench: An analysis of the use and preservation of MONK text mining research software

MONK is a web-based text mining software application hosted by the University of Illinois Library that enables researchers to analyze encoded digital texts from select databases and digital archives. This study examines sets of quantitative and qualitative data to explore the usage of MONK as a research tool: the author analyzes eighteen months of web analytics data from the MONK website and responses from five interviews with MONK users to examine the ways in which MONK has been most commonly used by researchers. In the paper's analysis, the author considers the implications of MONK's use in digital humanities research and teaching, and how a digital humanities tool such as MONK can be maintained for public use. This study ultimately explores how user studies of digital humanities tools can reveal insights into humanities scholars' needs for using digital tools to pursue new research methodologies, and argues that studying the usability and preservation of digital humanities tools will enable information professionals to address humanities scholars' needs for their digital scholarship.