JSTOR's "Data for Research" Beta Edition and TextArc

Just wanted to share what I learned in Digital Scholars today, because there's visual rhetoric written all over it. First, JSTOR is piloting a new project "Data for Research." Take a look here. In essence, this new project represents a new way to mine JSTOR data by utilizing visual tools--bar graphs, line graphs, and pie charts. It seems like the humanities are appropriating (is that the right word?) these visual tools more and more. Try it out--and let JSTOR know what you think. By the way, a basic search for the term "visual" delivered the results you see here. There is clearly an increasing appearance of the term in the JSTOR database (although, when you reduce the scale to the past decade, you discover a sharp decline in the term in the past three years. Hmmm). Is this useful?

Next is a project called TextArc--check it out here . Try out the Hamlet or the Alice in Wonderland sample. This project attempts to visualize the connections between words in a text, scanning through the individual words to visualize how they connect.

My question about all this is: so what? Does this help us in our discipline? Are these useful tools that help us think about knowledge and produce useful new knowledge? Or are they merely pedagogical fireworks? And what could Visual Rhetoric's role be in all of this?