Making Historical Sources Accessible: Part III
In the first two parts of this series I discussed how we can rescue historical data simply by dividing existing texts into sections. In this post I want to look at how we display this information.
The way in which you display the text can make a significant difference to useability. As an example, I will make use of data from Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, Borough of Southwark by one W. Stowe published in 1722. Stowe provides, among other things, details of coaching inns and when and where carriages depart and to which location. The entries are in a list, of which the following is the first line:
By consulting the key we find that this means that if you want to go to Abingdon, you can get a coach from the Sarazen's Head in Breadstreet on Thursday or Saturday or you can go with a carrier on Thursday's only. It is not that hard to work out but by the time you get to Wooten-Basset and York it has been a lot of effort. Some of the entries are quite complex as well, for example:
Your options for going to Canterbury are therefore, by coach from either the Spread Eagle in Gracechurch Street or the Coach and Horses in Charing Cross on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays in Summer but only Mondays and Thursdays in Winter; or from the Bell in Bellsavage Yard, Ludgate Hill on Mondays and Thursdays or, if you can't afford a coach, you can go by Carrier from either the Checquer in Charing Cross or the Star by the Monument on Mondays and Thursdays.
It rapidly becomes all too hard for our little brains to handle. But brains can be used to help us if we let them. Brains like things to be organised.
The salient bits of information that Stowe provides are: Destination, Type of Vehicle, Departure Point, Day(s) of the Week, Special Cases (e.g. Summer or Winter). We can create a table to display each one separating out the types of vehicle and having one column for each day, plus one for the special cases.
To use our Abingdon example, this becomes:
Suddenly, everything becomes clear. Have a look at my website http://www.pascalbonenfant.com/18c/co... for the complete version.
For extra points, you can re-order the table to sort by departure point instead of destination (see the site again) which is very useful but does require some work. Spreadsheets can help here.
I did a similar thing with the list of imports and exports provided by Don Manoel (see previous post). You can find it at http://www.pascalbonenfant.com/18c/lo... and what was a dense block of text now becomes an easy-to-read table.
In my next post we will take a look at databases. They can be a bit scary at first and take some getting used to but they are an extremely powerful information tool.
The way in which you display the text can make a significant difference to useability. As an example, I will make use of data from Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, Borough of Southwark by one W. Stowe published in 1722. Stowe provides, among other things, details of coaching inns and when and where carriages depart and to which location. The entries are in a list, of which the following is the first line:
Abingdon, Co. Sarazen's Head in Breadstreet, th. s. Car. ditto, th.
By consulting the key we find that this means that if you want to go to Abingdon, you can get a coach from the Sarazen's Head in Breadstreet on Thursday or Saturday or you can go with a carrier on Thursday's only. It is not that hard to work out but by the time you get to Wooten-Basset and York it has been a lot of effort. Some of the entries are quite complex as well, for example:
Canterbury, Co. Spread Eagle, Gracechurch Street, t. th. s in Summer, m. th. Winter; Coach and Horses, Charing Cross, the same Days; Bell in Bellsavage Yard, Ludgate Hill, m. th. Car. Checquer, Charing Cross, t. th. s. Star by the Monument, the same Days.
Your options for going to Canterbury are therefore, by coach from either the Spread Eagle in Gracechurch Street or the Coach and Horses in Charing Cross on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays in Summer but only Mondays and Thursdays in Winter; or from the Bell in Bellsavage Yard, Ludgate Hill on Mondays and Thursdays or, if you can't afford a coach, you can go by Carrier from either the Checquer in Charing Cross or the Star by the Monument on Mondays and Thursdays.
It rapidly becomes all too hard for our little brains to handle. But brains can be used to help us if we let them. Brains like things to be organised.
The salient bits of information that Stowe provides are: Destination, Type of Vehicle, Departure Point, Day(s) of the Week, Special Cases (e.g. Summer or Winter). We can create a table to display each one separating out the types of vehicle and having one column for each day, plus one for the special cases.
To use our Abingdon example, this becomes:
To | Vehicle | From | S | M | T | W | T | F | S | Special
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Abingdon | Carrier | Sarazen | . | . | . | . | T | . | . |
Abingdon | Coach | Sarazen | . | . | . | . | T | . | S |
Suddenly, everything becomes clear. Have a look at my website http://www.pascalbonenfant.com/18c/co... for the complete version.
For extra points, you can re-order the table to sort by departure point instead of destination (see the site again) which is very useful but does require some work. Spreadsheets can help here.
I did a similar thing with the list of imports and exports provided by Don Manoel (see previous post). You can find it at http://www.pascalbonenfant.com/18c/lo... and what was a dense block of text now becomes an easy-to-read table.
In my next post we will take a look at databases. They can be a bit scary at first and take some getting used to but they are an extremely powerful information tool.
date
newest »
newest »
message 1:
by
Eileen
(new)
Jul 27, 2014 03:27PM
An impressive amount of research! Especially the coach schedules. But the imports and exports as well.
reply
|
flag
