#technology in libraries

Data visualization is the process of organizing data - often rather complex data - into visual terms that are easier for us to understand.

Instead of a table with numbers, for example, you might have an interactive graph (Excel’s graphing option would be a very simplified example of this).

But data visualization doesn’t always have to be a graph, and there’s a helluva lot of different ways information can be presented.

Data visualization can be used in a wide of formats that allow huge amounts of raw data to be simplified in a way that’s it’s understandable to the human brain. It can be used to explain anything as mundane as How Louis CK Tells a Joke to A Guide to Who Is Fighting Whom In Syria. 

While I highly recommend you look up what’s out there, I should probably warn you that looking up data visualizations is kind of like looking up “just that one song” on YouTube - next thing you know it’s been three hours, you’re on the weird part of the internet, and you’re not quite sure how you got there.

In case you’re wary of falling into the (admittedly fascinating) black hole that is data visualization google searching, I gathered a bunch of examples in relation to Trump below:

The Guardian decided to keep a tally/scoreboard you can check in periodically to see how it’s changed.

The Washington Post looked at what Trump did during his first 744 hours (31 days) in office, keeping it simple with an old classic: the pie chart.

FiveThirtyEight came up with a nifty app where you can see how each member of congress has voted. If you’re a sports fan, this might be a fun app to check out, as their stats are rated much like player’s stats.

ProPublica’s made an interactive database which allows users to look at detailed data on lawmakers’ actions in Congress.

A blog by The Washington Post, called “The Fix”, developed a tweet fact-checker extension for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox

Nerdwriter1, a channel on YouTube, does great data visualization, and has done some work on Trump as well, such as How Trump Answers a Question and How (and Why) Trump Tweets.

And best for last: Vax, a free game explaining herd immunity and why vaccination is important not only on an individual level but also for society as a whole (especially for people whose immune systems are compromised, such as cancer patients and HIV+ individuals).

When done right, data visualization can help us to anchor abstract data on the firmer ground of concrete references, bringing it closer to the kind of information our brains evolved to understand more easily. Good to remember: image isn’t only what meets the eye. Imagery can also be a built-in feature of language, where imagined scenes and characters are “projected” right onto your brain’s internal screen, as vividly as (or more vividly than) the best collection of pixels on your monitor. 

Found: a Unique, Handwritten Copy of the Declaration of Independence - Atlas Obscura

Learn the Secret History of Your State With These Addictive Podcasts - Smithsonian

Studies in the News – a weekly compilation of policy-tested articles and reports compiled by the California Research Bureau

Who Does What? Defining the Roles & Responsibilities for Digital Preservation - The Signal

When you think “virtual reality,” what do you think of?  

For me—and here’s where I date myself as an old fogey to my younger followers—it’s The Matrix, Star Trek’s Holodeck, that room in Floop’s house in Spy Kids, and movies about the dangers of virtual reality becoming “too good” like 1999’s eXistenZ. It’s also those paper red-and-blue 3D glasses and sitting at the theatre like

So when Google Cardboard came out I was like

I got a Google Cardboard-compatible headset for $50, which I’m 100% sure will look hilariously outdated soon enough. It looks a lot like the one Stephen Colbert has been seen wearing:

...Except mine’s not fancy: I’m a Millennial who just graduated from my grad studies; having money’s a foreign concept to me.

But oh wow, guys.

THIS IS FRICKIN’ AWESOME.

The first Cardboard experience I had was a simple “tour” of Versailles where you can see a few 360° views of rooms. It felt so much like I was there, that I tried walking around and tripped over my desk chair. To save everyone (and their knees) the trouble: walking around doesn’t affect anything you’re seeing. It’s looking around, up, or down that does. In my headset’s case, you can “walk” by pressing a button on the side. I’m sure there must be better controllers for gaming, which leads me to the second experience I tried.

It was kind of like the satellite mode on Google Maps but immersive. After getting myself lost somewhere off the coast of France and temporarily panicking over being stuck over the open ocean, I flew around over a couple of cities. It felt like watching those epic sweeping shots in movies, like the scene in Dinosaur when the pterodactyl soars over canyons and rivers. Which may be why I started loudly singing the intro to Jurassic Park while “flying” through a canyon, leading my mom to let out a muttered snort of “Oh God” from the living room.

There’s a lot of stuff you can do with a VR set out there, especially considering Cardboard is still in its baby days. I took part in a Holi celebration in India (which I’ve always wanted to do—it looks so fun!) and watched a trippy ballet video by the Pacific Northwest Ballet.

But my favourite by far was a 360° video on YouTube of an ice cave near Whistler, BC. It had me gaping mesmerized with awe at the indescribably beautiful tones of blue ice “above” me while my mom kept going “No, no! Look DOWN! You get to see some rocks rolling by in the meltwater!”. I tried to watch the rocks, but kept gazing back up at the ice. I could stare it all day, especially since I get the upside of the beauty without actually feeling any of the cold! (Sorry, that’s an automatic consideration you think of when you’re Canadian :P).

In short, virtual reality looks like it‘s shaping up to be as cool (and inevitably weird) as we’d expect it to be. Which is nice, considering the sore disappointment at the continuing lack of flying cars, hoverboards, and jetpacks we were promised would be a thing by the year 2000.

“You know what libraries are known for? Sweet glasses.”

The future of the library in the digital age.