SUBSCRIBE
SUBSCRIBE
EXPLORE +
  • About infoDOCKET
  • Academic Libraries on LJ
  • Research on LJ
  • News on LJ
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Libraries
    • Academic Libraries
    • Government Libraries
    • National Libraries
    • Public Libraries
  • Companies (Publishers/Vendors)
    • EBSCO
    • Elsevier
    • Ex Libris
    • Frontiers
    • Gale
    • PLOS
    • Scholastic
  • New Resources
    • Dashboards
    • Data Files
    • Digital Collections
    • Digital Preservation
    • Interactive Tools
    • Maps
    • Other
    • Podcasts
    • Productivity
  • New Research
    • Conference Presentations
    • Journal Articles
    • Lecture
    • New Issue
    • Reports
  • Topics
    • Archives & Special Collections
    • Associations & Organizations
    • Awards
    • Funding
    • Interviews
    • Jobs
    • Management & Leadership
    • News
    • Patrons & Users
    • Preservation
    • Profiles
    • Publishing
    • Roundup
    • Scholarly Communications
      • Open Access

August 19, 2020 by Gary Price

Data Visualization: “How to Turn 175 Years of Words in Scientific American into an Image” + Interactive Resource

August 19, 2020 by Gary Price

From Scientific American:

Summarizing the history of a 175-year-old magazine—that’s 5,107 editions with 199,694 pages containing 110,292,327 words!—into a series of graphics was a daunting assignment. When the hard drive with 64 gigabytes of .pdf files arrived at my home in Germany, I was curious to dig in but also a bit scared: as a data-visualization consultant with a background in cognitive science, I am well aware that the nuance of language and its semantic contents can only be approximated with computational methods.

[Clip]

A central question in any data-science project is how wide a net one casts on the data set. If the net is too coarse, all the interesting little fish might escape. Yet if it is too fine, one can end up with a lot of debris, and too much detail can obscure the big picture. Can we find a simple but interesting and truthful way to distill a wealth of data into a digestible form? The editors and I explored many concept ideas: looking at sentence lengths, the first occurrences of specific words, changes in interpunctuation styles (would there be a rise of question marks?), and mentions of persons and places. Would any of these approaches be supported by the available data?

Learn More, Read the Complete Article

Direct to Interactive Data Visualization

Search a 4,000-word database to see how language in the magazine evolved over time.

Filed under: Data Files, News

SHARE:

About Gary Price

Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.

ADVERTISEMENT

Archives

Job Zone

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Infodocket Posts

Former Campbell County, Wyoming Library Director Terri Lesley Files Workplace Discrimination Complaint, Defamation Lawsuit

From the Gillette News Record: Two months after she was fired and nearly two years after a criminal complaint was filed against her, former library director Terri Lesley is taking ...

SAGE Releases a New Free-to-Read Collection with Research into Academic Freedom and Censorship 

From a SAGE News Release: Sage has launched a new collection of free-to-read research highlighting the effects of academic censorship on democracy, social-emotional learning, higher education, and more. Categories in ...

New Online Resource: University of Maryland Libraries Announces Online Launch of the "Advancing Workers' Rights” Digital Collection

Here’s the Full Text of Today’s Annoucement From the University of Maryland Libraries: The University of Maryland Libraries announces the debut of a significant, newly digitized collection, making available online for the ...

In Affiliation with Arizona State University, "President Biden to Create Library Honoring His Friend and Rival John McCain"

From The New York Times: President Biden plans to announce on Thursday that he will devote federal money to create a new library and museum dedicated to his old friend ...

Boston Public Library Joins Books Unbanned Initiative to Fight Censorship

Here’s the Full Text of Today’s Boston Public Library Announcement: The Boston Public Library (BPL) is joining the Brooklyn Public Library’s Books Unbanned initiative to fight censorship and book banning by offering teens and ...

Merriam-Webster Adds Adds 690 New Words to the Dictionary (September 2023 Update)

From the M-W Website: Signs of a healthy language include words being created, words being borrowed from other languages, and new meanings being given to existing words. Based on our ...

CT: Local Libraries Investigating Book Thefts After Titles Go Missing; Brooklyn Public Library’s Leigh Hurwitz on Helping Young...

Brooklyn Public Library Brooklyn Public Library’s Leigh Hurwitz on Helping Young People Resist Censorship (via LitHub) Connecticut Local Libraries Investigating Book Thefts After Titles Go Missing (via NBC Connecticut) Copyright ...

AI/GPT News Roundup: Items From ACM, JISC, OpenAI, Meta, and Others

ACM Tech Brief: Generative Artificial Intelligence AI Now Computational Power and AI (Report) Anthropic Amazon is Investing Up to $4 Billion in AI Startup Anthropic in Growing Tech Battle (via ...

EveryLibrary Institute and BookRiot Releases Findings From "Public Libraries and Book Bans - Parent Perception Survey"

From an EveryLibrary Release: The “Public Libraries and Book Bans – Parent Perception Survey” gathered insights from 853 parents and guardians with children under 18 during September 2023. The survey ...

Idaho: "Sheriff Scopes Out Explicit Library Books"

From The Coeur d’Alene Press: “Kootenai County Sheriff Bob Norris said he has heard from both sides about reportedly inappropriate materials available to youth at local libraries. One side argued ...

MIT Libraries Receives Grant From National Science Foundation to Explore Open Science Evaluations with ICOR; Clarivate Establishes Academia...

AI Generative AI Has Disrupted Education. Here’s How It Can Be Used For Good – UNESCO (via WEF) University of Leeds Research Report on Potentials for AI in Libraries (via ...

Resources: FCC Chairwoman Rosenworcel Proposes to Restore Net Neutrality Rules

UPDATED POST (Sep. 27, 2023): ALA Welcomes FCC Chair Rosenworcel’s Proposal to Reinstate Network Neutrality Rules —End Update— From a FCC Fact Sheet: The internet is too important to our ...

ADVERTISEMENT

FOLLOW US ON TWITTER

Tweets by infoDOCKET

ADVERTISEMENT

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

Primary Sidebar

  • News
  • Reviews+
  • Technology
  • Programs+
  • Design
  • Leadership
  • People
  • COVID-19
  • Advocacy
  • Opinion
  • INFOdocket
  • Job Zone

Reviews+

  • Booklists
  • Prepub Alert
  • Book Pulse
  • Media
  • Readers' Advisory
  • Self-Published Books
  • Review Submissions
  • Review for LJ

Awards

  • Library of the Year
  • Librarian of the Year
  • Movers & Shakers 2022
  • Paralibrarian of the Year
  • Best Small Library
  • Marketer of the Year
  • All Awards Guidelines
  • Community Impact Prize

Resources

  • LJ Index/Star Libraries
  • Research
  • White Papers / Case Studies

Events & PD

  • Online Courses
  • In-Person Events
  • Virtual Events
  • Webcasts
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe
  • Media Inquiries
  • Newsletter Sign Up
  • Submit Features/News
  • Data Privacy
  • Terms of Use
  • Terms of Sale
  • FAQs
  • Careers at MSI


© 2023 Library Journal. All rights reserved.


© 2022 Library Journal. All rights reserved.