asking questions of data
DESCRIPTION
If the information I need is locked in a dataset, and requires some sort of database query to construct that information from the dataset, who do I turn to for help in accessing it? The library? And if not the library, who?TRANSCRIPT
Asking questions of data:
Tony HirstComputing and Communications Dept,
The Open University, UK
blog.ouseful.info / @psychemedia
from simple searchto advanced queries
Time was when…
Search and replace
Advanced search and
replace
regex
Regular expressions
How do we discover or recover information from
data?
A medical librarian is probably not a expert on zoonotic H5H1 influenza
infections…
BUT…
How do we cope with new discovery
regimes and environments?
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Friends of my friends who are librarians
People who live in Bath and like the Future of Libraries
When the databases really are databases..?
USERS QUERY INFORMATION
DATA
QUERIES
USERS INFORMATION
An example – questions around
local elections
Which wards in my local council area were not
contested by Conservative affiliated candidates?
Can I get a list of all the candidates?
SELECT * FROM candidates
Can I get a list of people standing in wards in Newport
who live out of ward?
SELECT * FROM candidates WHERE ward LIKE 'Newport%' AND address NOT LIKE '%Newport%'
How many candidates did
each party field?
SELECT desc AS Party, COUNT(desc) AS Number FROM candidates GROUP BY Party ORDER BY Number DESC
Which wards were not contested by Conservative
affiliated candidates?
SELECT DISTINCT ward from Candidates WHERE ward NOT IN (SELECT DISTINCT ward FROM Candidates WHERE desc LIKE '%Conservative%’)
Which candidates were signatories in to
other proposals?
Time is now…
blog.ouseful.info @ps
yche
med
ia