Library On/Library Off

I like pretty things. I like pretty things even more when they’re communicating complex information effectively. Did I mention I’m in library school?

I find myself reading more blogs on data visualization these days, and spending more time oogling pretty pictures with Tufte on my mind. I even went so far as to momentarily think about taking another course in Statistics – thankfully that madness passed quickly. I thought I’d list out some of the blogs I’m following, some tools I think are sexy, and then ask you, dear reader, to leave comments on your own fav visualization blogs/tools/rants.

(Oh – and the quick disclaimer – I know there are a lot of terms for what I am here lumping as “data visualization” – see the Periodic Table of Visualization Methods. I’ve been trained to think of data as broadly writ – “alleged evidence,” not just quantitative/stacks of numbers – hence my use of the DV term. Please, do not make me get all Allen Renear on you…I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again!)

Planes or Volcano (corrected) from Information is Beautiful

Data Visualization (related) blogs and other sites:

• Cool Infographics – a blog published by a chap named Randy Krum, who is an INTJ. And a product developer/marketer.
• Flowing Data – a site by Nathan Yau, who is getting a PhD in Statistics. He recently showed an infographic about Biking in Minneapolis. MPLS, that’s the place that I like best. (See this if you’re not one of the two people to get that allusion.)
• Information Aesthetics – done by Andrew Vande Moere, a professor at the University of Sydney. His site boasts a “daily number of RSS feed subscribers” of over 23,000. Um, just like this blog. *cough* Moving on…
• Information is Beautiful – this one comes from David McCandless.
• Information Visualization Database from the Parsons Institute for Information Mapping at The New School in NYC – they also publish a (free) scholarly journal on Information Mapping.
• I mention it above, but really, the Periodic Table of Visualization Methods is neat. Be sure to mouse over each element – it gives an example. The Table is part of the e-learning work done at Visual-Literacy.org, sponsored and run by a consortium of largely Swiss schools.
• Visual Complexity – from Manuel Lima, a UX designer at Nokia.
• Well Formed Data – from Moritz Stefaner…I find it interesting that his background is in cognitive science. And I happen to like the blog.

• 

  Revisit - Moritz Stefaner's Twitter Visualization

And some tools – I’d particularly love your resources in this area, especially those not related to a single platform (i.e. Digg, Twitter, Last.fm, Delicious, et al):

And you? Do you like data visualization too? What neat resources do you have to give me?

(P.S. Yes, I was listening to Check Your Head as I wrote this blog post; so the title is indeed the Professor Booty sample from Wild Style. I never say no to inspiration, even if that inspiration is from 1983.)

If there’s something librarians love, it’s knowing what the world thinks about us, keeping tabs on the stereotypes, and getting our nether-garments in a bunch about aforementioned opinions and images. I like to think of it as the library profession’s equivalent of ego searching, this fixation on perception. And I’ll admit I’m game for it – every month when I get my copy of American Libraries, I flip right to the How the World Sees Us section. After all, it is a fine line between navel-gazing and brand management, right?

So I was pleased to see this tweet, via a RT, yesterday:

@wawoodworth: Poll: Worst librarian stereotype. Go. (answer then RT question, please)

And I couldn’t help but be interested in what the replies were, and I can’t help but post them here. I ended up setting up a Twapper Keeper for these tweets, and have pasted the bulk of them below (with apologies and thanks to all users, the public nature of Twitter, and @wawoodworth for starting the thread):

HeidiSteiner: That we’re all shushers. Shush I do not.
ksattler: Shhh!
Joe_Librarian: 63 year old who’s never had sex or an email account
jaimebc: That all we care about is books (not tech literate)
jhardenbrook:  All we do all day long is check out books
agrundmann: That all we do is sit around and read books all day
uamslibrary: That there aren’t any young librarians or librarians of color
nicolibrarian: Old white woman who doesn’t like you or noise or computers.
carolbatt: Shhh! Be Quiet! (but some still do!)
jpetroroy: That we just read all day long.
lbgilbert: SHUSH!
thebrainlair: That we are always shushing children.
orireed: Brary Buns!!!!
bookmeme:  Specs and tweed skirt with horizontal teeth…
librarianbryan: That linux-induced white boy doesn’t know his urban fiction!
miss_print: librarian as crazy cat lady
subclassz: Female librarians r secretly sluts while male librarians r monks.
subclassz: Also librarians don’t have social skills b/c u can’t be social AND smart/organized
civillibrarian: Female?
TheLiB: All we do is read all day (thx for that Laura Bush).
bmljenny: Sexy librarian. Not bad, I just can’t live up to it.
lauramac95: Catalogers as nitpicky anal-retentive fussbudgets
mascher: Socially inept.
ultimatelibrarn: memorized the dewey decimal system
schmeeeb: Kleenex up the cardigan sleeve
LCPLWeb: You don’t LOOK like a librarian.
tmvogel: 1) Cats 2) All we do is read/surrounded by books
vonburkhardt: Umm…that they all wear prescription shoes?
LibrariNerd: That we’re quaking in fear because print is dead.
msjoanthomas: We wear comfortable shoes
kimberwimber: Cat lovers. I def prefer dogs!
janholmquist: People thinking their questions are stupid because ‘You know so much’
thepinakes: That all young librarians are hip and tattooed.
WWUBusLib: That we’re all prim old ladies who do nothing but shhh
jonbloy: Librarians go around shushing people.
RedheadFangirl: That I’m a “naughty librarian” & wear garters.
RedheadFangirl: Or that I’m a crocheting cat lady (true, but love rock, horror)
marissajeanine: That all librarians are old!!!

I’ll also indulge in confirming a stereotype by admitting I couldn’t help but want to classify and graph these tweets (yes, let the heckling begin – but I will have you know that Dorothy of Cat and Girl also enjoys recreational data visualization, so I am not the only one):

Perception, bar-graph-style *Dowdiness including all things physical appearance, including cardigans and tweed. +Ineptitude including fussbudgetiness

Tweets, Charlotte's-Web-Style (i.e. "Hey, librarians! You're a shushing, dowdy bunch of oldsters!" *Dowdiness including all things physical appearance, including cardigans and tweed. +Ineptitude including fussbudgetiness

At least it is a fun slide! *Dowdiness including all things physical appearance, including cardigans and tweed. +Ineptitude including fussbudgetiness

And for those of you who *still* haven’t had your RDA of nerd, here’s my spreadsheet for coding the tweets. Really, people. Get a life.