256) Books and Culture

Earlier this month, Google Labs introduced the Books Ngram Viewer, which pulls together word frequency data from almost 5.2 million digitized books that were written between 1500 and 2008. Users can search for words and short phrases to see how often and when they appeared throughout history.


(Religion vs. science - click to enlarge. From informationisbeautiful.)

For a word nerd and data lover like me, this was Christmas come early. It's endless fun to compare terms (see my Beatles popularity graph), and to see what other people have come up with (check out the graphs by Informationisbeautiful - so much good stuff). Many are quick to point out that word frequency in books doesn't necessarily reflect culture (semantics, changes in word meaning/use, etc).


(Gay vs. homosexual - click to enlarge. From informationisbeautiful.)

Books are an interesting choice when it comes to measuring culture. Publishing a book is an ordeal - it takes investment from the author, editors, and publishers. The relative difficulty of publishing a book compared to say, a magazine or a blog results in a couple conclusions regarding culture. On the one hand, subjects that warrant book publishing have cemented their place in culture. Once books start being published about a certain topic, it means that said topic has gained enough cultural popularity/relevance to warrant the publication process.

On the other hand, because of the barrier to entry inherent in book publication (not just anyone can get a book published), books are much less flexible in reflecting niche culture. Monthly magazines, daily newspapers and blogs can report trends in a timely, low-commitment manner.

So, are books a good measure of culture? Thinking back to my post on Influencers a couple days ago, books seem to be a reflection of trends that have hit the mainstream, while zines et al. reflect more of a maverick's culture.