History of Computing and Data

In The History of Humanities Computing Susan Hockey takes on the monumental task of recounting the entire history of computing as it pertains to the humanities in 14 pages.  Perhaps this work should have been re-titled, that is the History of Humanities Computing until 2004.  This would have given the reader more of a background of what to expect in terms of content.  The beginning of the article entitled Beginnings and Consolidation were great examinations of computing through time.  When Susan Hockey discusses the Era of the Internet, the analysis is a little trying.  I believe the article should have stopped right before the internet, in order to preserve this as a history of the humanities computing, not the current state of humanities computing.

Looking at the Old Bailey database is a great example of academic search capabilities of websites.  The advanced search function enables researchers the ability to search narrowly and broadly.  This capability allows academic research along side of casual searchers who want to know how many people were sentenced to death by hanging of chains.  The ease of search also helps to browse, you can begin by filtering the database by something you know you want to research, e.g. men, and then peruse the results.  The biggest drawback with this browsing style is that you cannot change the amount of results on the page for a given query.  What I mean is if there are 50 results you can only view them 10 at a time, rather than seeing all 50 at once.  The Old Bailey site has been able to be used by instructors at the college level, such as Ancarett who has been using the Old Bailey database to form the basis of a project for students.  This project also allows for the exportation of search data, e.g. how many murders happened between X and Y? The manipulation and export of data allows researchers to use the data in various ways, including visualization projects, which Allen points out can take many different forms.

Allen's article is great in that it reminds us in this technological age that data visualization isn't new.  Allen points out visualization project dating back from 1780.  What is new is the power and availability of these visualization tools.  Allen points out a variety of tools and resources to evaluate not only data but also words.  Allen brings up some good points when discussing this and likes to point out that data can be anything, e.g. names, age, sex, location.  Allen reminds us that if we take the time to visualize our data it allows us to look at our data differently and perhaps see trends that we hadn't seen before.

One thing to remember when thinking about data and visualization is the key idea, what is data?  The first response to a google querry "define:data" is: Facts and statistics collected together for reference or analysis.  I liked this definition, however I feel like there is more to it, so I'll leave you with the question: What is data?

Servers from 2009, courtesy of bandarji on Flickr Commons.  Is this data?