Clouds, Rivers, and Mountains of Knowledge: Visualizing the History of Knowledge in Large Historical Datasets

• In Event: Lightning Round: Digital Project Spotlight

Abstract

The project Knowevo ( http://knowevo.cs.uml.edu/ ) uses computational analysis of large structured historical datasets designed to represent knowledge (such as historical editions of Encyclopaedia Britannica and Library of Congress Catalog ) to delineate structures, relations, and historical changes within and across various domains of knowledge. We present four interactive tools: 1) Clouds of Knowledge is a visualization of the LC collection based on the LCC categories clustered by subject headings based on a a force-directed graph; 2) Mountains of Knowledge visualizes the domains of knowledge as a 3-d mountainous surface projecting from the square plane produced by the LC categories; 3) Rivers of Knowledge is a stream graph that shows domains as “streams” whose width changes over time reflecting the corresponding proportion of the LC collection ; 4) Facebook of the Past allows one to investigate social and intellectual connections of persons featured in historical editions of Britannica and reconstruct changes in the the underlying social graph.

Authors

• Mikhail Gronas, Dartmouth College

• Anna Rumshisky, U of Massachusetts Lowell

• Alexey Romanov, U of Massachusetts Lowell