I got a brilliant set of responses to this request, both on-and off-list, and I thought it would be worth doing a quick roundup of all the various tools etc suggested. I've tried to roughly divide them into a few categories. Hopefully this might be a useful summary for others.
Thanks to all who sent ideas & suggestions
Danny
Tools
Mike Ellis pointed out that Google's ngram is always fun
http://books.google.com/ngrams
Mike also pointed out IBM's ManyEyes data visualisation tools
http://www-958.ibm.com/software/analytics/manyeyes/
Joy Palmer noted Library of Congress' heritage-oriented Viewshare
http://viewshare.org/
and also D3.js, a javascript library for manipulating data-driven documents
http://d3js.org/
APIs/services
The Amazon API allows you to pull back bibliographic data, as Dan Pett pointed out in use on the Portable Antiquities Scheme website
http://finds.org.uk/database/publications/publication/id/82
Amber Stevens pointed out that the Google Books API returns lots of detail against an ISBN
https://www.googleapis.com/books/v1/volumes?q=isbn:9781409065586
and that the Open Library API also provides similar data
http://openlibrary.org/api/books?bibkeys=ISBN:9781409065586&format=json&jscmd=data
Trevor Reynolds pointed out that LibraryThing offers a number of enhancements for libraries
http://www.librarything.com/forlibraries
Mia added the WorldCat API
http://www.worldcat.org/affiliate/tools?atype=wcapi
and pointed out that Omeka now has a RESTful API which might handle bibliographic data
http://omeka.org/blog/2013/07/11/omeka-2-1-release-candidate-updated-berlin-theme-and-a-restful-api/
Products
Alan Payne from Deep Visuals shared their ViziQuest system for visual semantic browsing
http://www.deepvisuals.com/
Timelines
Mia pointed out Neatline, which sits on top of Omeka
http://neatline.org/
and Tony Hirst (via twitter) pointd to this Google spreadsheets-based timeline tool
http://timeliner.okfnlabs.org/
Maps
Joy was also exploring CartoDB for rendering geospatial data
http://cartodb.com/
and pointed out this visualisation by Harvard metaLAB visualising publication places of the Harvard Library's early modern collections
http://vimeo.com/46773161
Natalie Pollecutt showed how she mapped Wellcome Library's Medical Officer of Health reports
http://blog.wellcomelibrary.org/2011/03/putting-medical-officer-of-health-reports-on-the-map/
A (small) list of lists
Check out both Mike's pinboard of visualisation links
https://pinboard.in/search/u:dmje?query=visualisation
and Mia's Resources for 'Data Visualisation for Analysis in Scholarly Research
http://www.miaridge.com/resources-for-data-visualisation-for-analysis-in-scholarly-research/
________________________________
From: Birchall, Danny
Sent: 01 August 2013 10:43
To: 'Museums Computer Group'
Subject: Visualising bibliographic data in a fun kind of way
Hi
I'm on the hunt for products/tools/toolsets that might help me visualise bibliographic data in a fun-rather-than-academic kind of way, creating different ways to browse and investigate a list of between 200-2,000 individual book titles.
In my dreams I'd like something that could use a list of ISBNs to pull back a set of cover thumbnails which could then be thrown onto a map by place of publication, a timeline by year of publication, or even arranged by colour of the cover (I can dream).
It looks like the Google Books api can do pull back some of that kind of data, but it also seems heavily biased towards directing people to previews of the books (not necessarily something I'd want to do)
Any help by way of examples of things like this, APIs that might make this doable, telling me I'm mad etc, much appreciated.
Thanks
Danny
Danny Birchall
Web Editor, Wellcome Collection
Wellcome Trust
Gibbs Building
215 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE, UK
Tele: +44 (0) 207 611 8894
email: [log in to unmask]
www.wellcomecollection.org
www.twitter.com/explorewellcome
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