Visualizing Book Adoption
Explore relationships between book popularity, topics, and circulation at the Seattle Public Library.
Description
In the “Visualizing Book Adoption” project, completed during a UCSB Media Arts and Technology course, I explored book checkout trends from the Seattle Public Library, blending data analysis with creative visualization. I developed a 3D interactive platform using Processing that enabled users to explore book checkout data over time, focusing on trends across years, months, and genres.
The project began with building a web scraper and API adapter to efficiently extract the library's data. I applied data normalization techniques to handle inconsistencies in checkout counts, ensuring the visualizations accurately represented the trends. Users could interact with the tool to switch between different temporal and genre-based views, creating an engaging and intuitive experience.
This project demonstrated the power of transforming raw data into meaningful insights, revealing fascinating stories about book popularity and adoption over time. By visualizing the checkout patterns, I was able to highlight how data storytelling can enhance public understanding of library usage and reading trends.
For more details, check out part 1, part 2, part 3, and the related source code.
