Presentation for RBMS Digital Special Collections discussion group at ALA Midwinter 2017.

1. Visualizing Collection Data
Kelli Hansen
University of Missouri
hansenkb@Missouri.edu
@BiblioKelli

2. A little background
• Problem: Almost all the instructors we work with said they were
not interested in using the catalog to find Special Collections
materials.
• How can I present information on what is in the collections for
any given time period and subject classification?
• How can I get them to explore?
• I am approaching this visualization as a communication tool, not a
catalog replacement.

3. Export collection data
• University of Missouri Libraries uses Sierra from III.
• I used Create Lists and exported ITEM records instead of bibliographic
records, since part of the goal was to recreate the experience of
browsing.
• Fields to export in the Tableau spreadsheet:
• Author
• Title
• Location code
• Call number
• Publication Date
• Language
• Record number

4. Clean up collection data
• Split rows by rows to get each record on its own row
• A couple of ways to do this:
• Regular expression searches in a text editor
• Excel macro
• Download my Excel macro here: http://wp.me/p4Zgjb-2k

5. Set up visualizations in Tableau Public and
Voyant Tools
• Why Tableau?
• I couldn’t find other software with the same functionality, for free.
• Why Voyant Tools?
• Tableau doesn’t do word clouds very well, especially on big datasets.

6. Titles

7. Subjects

8. Outcomes

9. Work in progress
• Directions for future refinements:
• Improve slow/clunky interface
• Reset button for filters
• Keyword filter on subjects and titles
• Alternatives to word clouds?
Kelli Hansen
hansenkb@Missouri.edu
@bibliokelli