Visualizing Aggregated Data
Friday, May 23rd, 2008 | Jeanne Kramer-Smyth
I would love to discuss ideas for visualizing aggregated data.
My personal focus has been on descriptive data about archival record groups and manuscript collections – with a stress on subject terms, quantity of materials (think total linear feet), subject terms and physical location of the materials. I worked on a prototype visualization tool called ArchivesZ – but I have also seen many other inspirations for alternate approaches.
General topics I would like to include:
- leveraging standard markup, such as EAD (Encoded Archival Description), to support aggregation of information about collections both within and across institutions
- the challenge of non-standard subject terms
- the coolest visualizations we think could be adapted to this type of data (my current obsession being the TimeRiver as exemplified by the NY Time’s box office revenue visualization)
I think that these ideas could coordinate well with what Laura mentioned in An archive aggregator.
Tags: visualizations
May 23rd, 2008 at 11:39 pm
I think the TimeRiver is beautiful as well as incredibly useful. Could you demo ArchivesZ? In thinking about kinds of subject terms, is it possible to think about layers of metadata, from the kind that imagines itself to be permanent in relation to an eternally existing object or record, and then to imagine another kind that is transient but permanently provides a historical record of reception/use? (I’m not sure that makes sense.) NINES uses RDF in the way that you imagine the EAD functioning: maybe we should have a session on aggregating, and the simplest modes of interoperability?
May 4th, 2010 at 2:54 am
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