Tome Reader a Digital Data Story in our Aggregative Series is now published!
This exercise is best suited to those with an interest in reading archaeology-related comics, exploring how to use visuals in archaeology, or discussing the impacts of archaeological data on current comic books. Users should have some familiarity with group discussion or book clubs, but previous experience with data, archaeology, or comics is not required.
This page provides access to the resource in two ways. The first is through a series of digital documents that represent the complete Digital Data Story. These include the:
A single-PDF for the combined Digital Data Story materials is available here. These materials are also available through the Digital Data Stories code repository on Codeberg. The R markdown files on Codeberg provide the text and primary images from the electronic documents, minus additional formatting, and with only select decorative images. The R markdown files may be altered and forked from the repository for custom use with the original or different book data sets. To more accurately recreate the dynamic documents for the adult comic book list and discussion guide in R markdown, users should download the book data table alongside the code and images so that the code pulls the correct materials. That code represents our commitment to open science, data literacy, and transparency in our process.
These materials, either through the single-PDF publication of record, dynamic digital documents, or the code, are designed to be used synergistically. However, any piece of this Digital Data Story may be used separately or re-ordered according to the requirements of the user or according to specific educational goals. Tome Reader and its resources are free to use with the text licensed CC BY and all adaptations of “Cartoon versions of DLP staff” licensed CC BY-NC-SA, with other licenses as noted for specific images within the Digital Data Story. In addition, this Digital Data Story references Cow-culating Your Data with Spreadsheets and R (CC BY) and Of Mycenaean Men (CC BY).
Thank you so much for using our educational resources! Although this Digital Data Story is published, if you or your participants have time, please consider contributing an open peer review for our ongoing review process. Such updates will be noted below and first available through the digital documents and Codeberg repository prior to PDF updating.
To attribute this Digital Data Story or any of it’s parts, please use our suggested citation:
Paulina F. Przystupa and L. Meghan Dennis, 2025, “Tome Reader: The AAI Reads Comics Book Club”, Data Stories Program, Alexandria Archive Institute / Open Context, Published Online, DOI: https://doi.org/10.6078/M7K64G75.
Preprint page published: April 2025
Page updates: Changed “adult fiction book” to “adult comic book” and some other minor textual updates preceding Version 2.0. July 2026 – This Digital Data Story completed peer review in 2025 and, after revision, is now published. Major updates included the addition of section pages in the book club guides, minor edits to the text documents, and updated or additional images. There are other minor edits captured by the Codeberg histories and by comparison with Version 1.0, which is archived at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15644511. There was also minor textual revisions to this page.
Image credit: “Tome Reader Header” by Paulina F. Przystupa from the Data Literacy Program (DLP) / CC BY-NC-SA. It includes an adaptation of the “AAI reads logo” by Paulina F. Przystupa, which is an adaptation of an Adobe stock image, and “Cartoons of Data Literacy Program Staff” by ama from the DLP / CC BY-NC-SA.
