Harnessing New Data Visualization Tools: Say It Visually

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Harnessing New Data Visualization Tools Say It
Visually

• Darlene Fichter
• darlene.fichter_at_usask.ca
• Jeff Wisniewski
• jeffw_at_pitt.edu
• April 2, 2009

Photo by chdota, Creative Commons
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Data visualization
Telling Stories
Library Opportunities
Tools
Social Data
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Power of visualization

• Conveying information visually can open the
  hearts, minds and eyes of the viewers

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Photo by Mark Witton, Creative Commons
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Visualization takes off

• Its a visual world
• Notice the growth of the use of rich information
  graphics and visualizations in newspapers and
  magazines
• Lots of opportunities and new tools popping up
  that help display data visually

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Population density of the USA
www.time.com/time/covers/20061030/where_we_live/
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Tangible visualizations
http//infosthetics.com/archives/2008/01/rice_demo
graphics_exhibition.html
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What we eat
Germany The Melander family of Bargteheide Food
expenditure for one week 500.07
http//relevantmagazine.com/releblog/revolution/wh
at-we-eat/
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Bhutan The Namgay family of Shingkhey
VillageFood expenditure for one week 5.03
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Visualizing data

• What comes to mind first?

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The power of pie

• http//www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-03-07/

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Mind maps, heat maps and timelines
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Just the tip of iceberg
http//www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/peri
odic_table.html
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Displaying results visually

• Thumbnails
• Coverflow
• 3D

Ubrowser www.ubrowser.com
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Playful artistic

• Amaztype http//amaztype.tha.jp/

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We feel fine Metrics
http//www.wefeelfine.org/
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We feel fine
http//www.wefeelfine.org/movements.html
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Important methods for libraries

• Standard data visualization
• bar, pie, histograms, line, scatterplot
• Information visualization
• Timeline, venn diagram, flowchart, cycle diagram
• Data map, tree map,
• Semantic network, clustering
• Cartesian coordinates
• Organization chart
• Others
• magic quadrant

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Start with the familiar

• Map of Library Locations (data map)

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Old versus new
District of Columbia Library Locations http//www.
dclibrary.org/dcpl/cwp/view.asp?a1266q564161
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Text search
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Visual and interactive
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Google My Maps

• Go to maps.google.com
• Click on My Maps
• Add pushpins plus notes to create a map
• Embed the code in a web page
• Library branches
• Historical buildings
• Locations in stories

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Charts and graphs

• What library numbers do we talk and write about
  that could be graphed?

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Introducing Google Spreadsheets

• Advantages over Excel
• Available at anywhere (ref desk, office, home)
• Flexible updating with web form
• Social Dimension
• Share with some people or everyone
• Permissions to read or write
• Portable
• Publish on their site
• Embed tables and charts your own site

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Google Spreadsheets

• Create a spreadsheet and type in data
• Upload a CSV file
• Pie Chart
• First resource consulted by students
• Course-related research
• Non-course related research

docs.google.com
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Sample table non-course
   
Year Major Google Wikipedia Amazon Other
1 English   1    
2 nursing 1  
3 education 1      
1 geography 1
4 commerce   1    
1 history  
1 English     1  
3 education 1  
2 psychology 1      
4 education 1      
Total 5 1 2 1
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Pie charts
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Not all pies are the same
OCLC Where Do College Students
Start? http//www.oclc.org/reports/2005perceptions
.htm
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Create a chart using Google Spreadsheets

1. Work in a small group
2. Pick one of the following stories
3. Decide what you want to convey
4. Input your data to Google Spreadsheet or another
   tool
5. Create a graph or chart. You can fabricate some
   extra data points if needed.
6. Share your chart add a link or upload to the
   Data Sandbox area.

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Choose one

• Library adds 1000 new design books
• http//www.ocad.ca/about_ocad/articles/headlines/2
  0080924_library_adds_books.htm
• Libraries experience growth
• http//www.star-telegram.com/news/story/1229455.ht
  ml
• Pick something to show over time childrens
  programs, circulation
• http//www.westportlibrary.org/about/history.html
• Library cuts hurt student achievement teachers
• http//www.peak.sfu.ca/the-peak/2003-3/issue10/ne-
  libraries.html
• Challenge old space vs new space
• http//clerk.ci.homer.ak.us/memo0611.htm
• Other some data about your library currently
  displayed only as text

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Show tell discuss

• Share your chart or graph
• Give everyone a moment to consider what youre
  trying to convey and form our own impressions
• Then
• Tell us the what you were trying to say
• Discussion and feedback

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Go visual to persuade and inform
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Words vs. visualizations
http//berkeleycountylibrary.blogspot.com/2009/02/
lining-up-outside-goose-creek-branch.html
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Library line up
http//www.library.ns.ca/node/321
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Words AND visualizations ?
http//www.library.ns.ca/node/1340
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Book returns
Newton Free Library (Creative Commons)
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Telling your story

• How well do these visualizations work to tell the
  story?

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Chart Strengths and weaknesses?
Headline Saginaw library circulation climbs as
economy falters
http//www.mlive.com/news/saginaw/index.ssf/2009/0
1/saginaw_library_circulation_cl.html
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Library use on the rise
http//inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2009/a-look
-at-recessions-and-their-impact-on-librarianship/
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Job trends Circulation coordinator
http//www.simplyhired.com/a/jobtrends/trend/q-Coo
rdinatorOfCirculation
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Library data beyond the basics

• Get social and share your data and RSS feeds
• Choose a creative commons license

• New titles received
• Top circulating titles by category
• Library locations and hours
• Upcoming library programs by date
• Recent returns (randomized for anonymity)

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Letting 1000 stories bloom
Photo Jim Frazier Creative Commons
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Kate Knitting blogger
http//4obsessions.blogspot.com/2008/09/return-to-
fiber.html
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Choose one

• Pick one of the stories below to work on. Decide
  what you want to communicate. Find an image
  licensed under creative commons to visualize it.
• Award winning mystery books
• http//www.bpl.burnaby.bc.ca/fiction/mysawa.htm
• Join the Friends of the Library
• http//www.chelmsfordlibrary.org/friends/index.htm
  l
• LWW Nursing Collection added
• http//www.xavier.edu/library/news.cfm?news_id610
  4archiveno
• 360 Search, Serials Solutions' Federated Search
  Engine
• http//elinks.ecc.edu/library/whatnew.asp
• Other - something from your workplace

Flickr - http//search.creativecommons.org/
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Show Tell

• Share your photo

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Before you publish anything
Ask yourself Could it be better?
SuperBomba via Flickr, creative commons
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More tools Tag clouds

• Provide another way to search by highlighting
  popular items
• Help with search and discovery

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Delicious
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Your personal collection
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PennTags Community created collection
http//tags.library.upenn.edu/
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Tag clouds quickly reveal focus
Explore Brand Which tag cloud belongs to
Microsoft? Yahoo? Twitter? Google?
http//library2.usask.ca/fichter/blog_on_the_side
/2008/05/using-tag-clouds-to-visualize-brands.html
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Word art
http//manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/visual
izations/wordle-of-jane-austens-pride-and-pre-3
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Explore the bios of your Twitter followers
www.twittersheep.com
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Examples Class feedback

• Visualize feedback on the fly
• Virtual reference comments
• Web site feedback
• Library suggestion box
• Transcripts of usability study
• Search queries
• Twitter results for your library

Tag cloud from Web Mangers Academy 2008 created
with TagCrowd.com
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Library uses for tag clouds

• Brainstorm

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Tag cloud exercise

• Pick one of the following to create a cloud for
• Create a tag cloud of your library home page
• Create a tag cloud of data from BYOD
• Use the data file called tagdata.txt
• Create a tag cloud of Twitter followers bios
  using TwitterSheep.com
• Then
• Use tagcrowd.com to create the cloud
• Share your tag cloud

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Look at the clouds
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Library content gets visual

• Easy to Hard DIY
• Website
• Catalog
• Databases

Photo by spincycle (creative commons)
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Look at the big one
Search
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A typical catalogue
A search for dog returns 1834 results.
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500,000,000 hits
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Lets get visual
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Libraries are also grandtoo bad they have so
much stuff
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Forecast cloudy
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Would the real Bond please step forward?

• (James) bond
• Stocks and bonds
• Baseball
• Family ties

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Cluster results by category
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How about pulling out and visualizing concepts?
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How about visual feedback as you limit?
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oSkope Search by keyword
oSkope.com
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oSkope List view
Mouse over effect
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Ill know it when I see it.

• Who doesnt recognize a book by its cover?

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oSkope Grid view
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oSkope Pile view
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Pile and grid view rule for search history

• Recognition vs. recall
• Icing on the cake?
• Pile in reverse chronological order
• Pile by term in reverse order
• Pile by day / date

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oSkope Beyond plain lists
Price
Pagerank
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What about the other visual search engines?
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Look familiar?
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Now I know where Ive seen you!
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3D and immersive results

• Ubrowser neat to look at, but ?

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Catalog and database search

• Probably an area where most of us wont DIY
• Some things are easier than others
• Showing book covers
• Choosing a library OPAC with visual tools built
  in
• One open source solution Scriblio
• Commercial catalog products such as AquaBrowser,
  Endeca,
• Ebscos Visual Search
• http//www.ebscohost.com/thisTopic.php?marketID2
  topicID407

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More visualization tools

• Mindmaps
• Web site structure mapper
• Diagrams

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Mind map
bubbl.us
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Other mind map tools
freemind.sourceforge.net
mindmeister.com
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Web site structure mapper

• Blue links
• Red tables
• Green div
• Violet images
• Yellow forms
• Orange breaks, paragraphs ..
• Black the ltHTMLgt tag
• Gray all other tags

www.aharef.info/static/htmlgraph/
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Gliffy Diagrams, floorplans,

• Gliffy.com - free 30 day trial

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Lovely Charts

• Create flowcharts, wireframes, sitemaps, org
  charts, network diagrams

www.lovelycharts.com
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Data visualization social

• Why add social?
• Human nature create, share and hoard
• Data visualization
• Create
• Share
• Save
• Organize
• Collaborate
• Replicate
• Adapt

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Charts, Graphs, Data Visualizations
Web
Applications

• Open Data

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Web 2.0

• Everyone can participate
• Dont need to know HTML
• Blog, wiki, ..
• Amateur professionals
• Citizen journalists
• Photographers
• Cartographers
• Question answer services

The rise of the amateur statistician.
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Advantages of social data

• Idealistic view
• Cautiously optimistic
• Skeptical

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Idealistic
Slide from Bricolage Data at Play Joe
Hellerstein, UC Berkeley
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Now - Future
Slide from Bricolage Data at Play Joe
Hellerstein, UC Berkeley
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Idealistic

• Soon, on Timepedia.org, you will be able to come
  join us in building the machine, or visualize,
  learn, and analyze our shared history, we hope
  for the betterment of the human condition.
  Sincerely, Timepedia's Staff

http//timepedia.blogspot.com/2007/11/chronoscope-
released.html
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Skeptical/Pessimistic

• Data authority - garbage in, garbage out GIGO
• Deliberate misinformation, spam, errors
• Provenance
• Privacy and security
• Identifying banned books readers or by mining
  Amazon Wishlists and combining information with
  Yahoo People

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What happens when data goes social?
Photo by .eti Creative Commons
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DataPlace

• Think community statistics
• Data and maps
• Assemble your own geographies from neighborhood
  to nation
• Connect. Discuss. Collaborate.
• Host Important Discussions Online
• Share a Calendar
• Save and Distribute Important Files
• Share Uploaded Datasets

www.dataplace.org
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Under the hood

• Many activities to create Free Harmonized Data
  to the People
• Difficult to crawl data the way that web pages
  are crawled
• Need to harmonize it (dates, locations, )
• April 1, 2008
• 1/4/2008
• 4/1/2008
• 2008-Apr-1

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EveryBlock
Civic information building permits, crimes,
News articles and blog entries Web stuff
Craigslist, Yelp
www.everyblock.com
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TracknGraph

• Walking Tracker
• Investment Tracker
• Mood Tracker
• Baby Sleep Schedule
• Breastfeeding Tracker
• Weight Tracker
• Child Growth Tracker
• Calorie Counter
• Workout Tracker
• Blood Pressure Monitor

www.trackngraph.com
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Social features

• Share
• Control access
• Group updating
• Publish anywhere
• Create team trackers

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Spontaneous communities

• Conversations around collections of data
• Example Flickr - High Dynamic Range photo
• HDR is two or more exposures
• Comments, community, practices
• Greater dynamic range of exposures

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Photo The last sunray Barcelona by Mor
(bcnbits) licensed under Creative Commons
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How to put pretty stuff in those drops.
Photo by Steve Took It Creative Commons
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Social sites for data visualization

• Allows new kind of data analysis
• Caters to the curious and serious, statistician
  and the citizen
• Important new medium

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Why social?
Slide Tom Coates, Yahoo!
Photo by maqroll
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Social data tools
Swivel
Gapminder
Many Eyes
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Swivel
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Swivel tasty data goodies
http//www.swivel.com Does bowling really burn
the most calories?
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Many Eyes from IBM Alphaworks
http//manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/
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Many Eyes from IBM Alphaworks
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Why is the sun called a dwarf star?
http//services.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/view/S
JjqGFsOtha6ICEU6EQIF2-
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Love analyzing textual works
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Many Eyes features

• 1. View and discuss visualizations
• 2. View and discuss data sets
• 3. Create visualizations from existing data sets
• If you register, you can also
• 4. Rate data sets and visualizations
• 5. Upload your own data
• 6. Create and participate in topic hubs
• 7. Select items to watch
• 8. Track your contributions, watchlist, and topic
  hubs
• 9. See comments that others have written to you

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Many Eyes
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Many Eyes

• Show us something about your library or create
  something to add to your library web site.
• Create a Many Eyes account
• Create a visualization
• Add a link to it from the Data Sandbox page
• 4. Comment on another visualization

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Calling all code monkeys
illustrator Howard V Brown  Photo Radio Rover
Creative Commons
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Google visualization API

• Uses the visualization techniques from Gapminder
  - motion charts
• flashy 3D funnels
• pyramids, pie donuts
• time series charts (stock prices)
• data gauges
• geographical heat maps
• Gantt charts

Supported in Google Docs Spreadsheets some new
Gadgets
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Flowing data
Swedish professor Hans Rosling, Trendalyzer
software
http//www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/92
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Google API - Trendalyzer
Video of Hans Rosling showing the gapminder
software and lively animations of world
development trends.
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Yahoo charting API
http//developer.yahoo.com/yui/docs/module_charts.
html
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Many more tools

• For everyone
• DIY programmers

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Make a visualization action plan
Daily - Take 1 to 10 photos
Weekly - Make a graph
Monthly - Make an infographic
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Thank you

• Jeff Wisniewski
• jeffw_at_pitt.edu
• Darlene Fichter
• darlene.fichter_at_usask.ca
• library2.usask.ca/fichter/