On March 1st of 2012, Bruce Boucek joined the Library as the new Social Sciences Data Librarian. In his first 3 months with the library Bruce has already contributed to a number of different projects. Beyond working with data and analysis he has a strong interest in the visualization of data and the use of such visualizations to tell larger stories. The Brown University Library has published its Spring/Summer 2012 Dealing with Data Newsletter; Bruce contributed the cover graphic shown here:

The graphic illustrates the relationships between data, the tools and methods we use to visualize data, and the desire to more fully understand our world, which is the reason we examine, explore, and analyze large data sets.The graphic consists of a Delauney Triangulation, examples of the raw data table used to generate it, and a subset of a NASA MODIS satellite image of New England.

The Delauney Triangulation is sometimes used for the analysis of spatially distributed data and in such cases the generated polygons are called Thiessen polygons. The data used to produce this one was synthetically generated using the add-on package or library deldir for the R environment for statistical computing and graphics. The data is composed of two sets of random normally distributed values, each with a count of 250, a mean of zero and a standard deviation of 5000 (completely arbitrary). The satellite imagery of southern New England provides contrast in that it is simultaneously another data set and a visibly recognizable piece of the human landscape.

This graphic also demonstrates how various data, methods, and tools can be used to visualize a larger story that is only partially told via numbers and models and that also requires human translation, interpretation, and dissemination.