Music CD Checkouts from the Seattle Public Library
MAT 259, 2021
Will Sheppard
Concept
In recent decades, music consumption by the public has changed as new audio media has become available. Using checkout data from the Seattle Publuc Library, this project aims to highlight trends in the number of checkouts of CDs across time and across ten genres of music represented by rectangles of ten different colors and length proportional to the log of checkouts. Time is visualized as a spiral, with one full rotation equalling roughly one year of checkout data. The data is meant to resemble a CD, although many features of the spiral are customizable. At other settings the data vaguely resembles audio equalizer bars on a soundsystem. It is apparent that CDs across each genre has drecreased between 2006 and 2021. Jazz, rock and pop music consistently outpace the other genres in daily checkouts by about one order of magnitude. Interesting bejavior can be observed during the Covid-19 pandemic at the top end of the spiral.
Query
SELECT
DATE(cout) AS date, COUNT(IF(spl_2016.subject.subject LIKE "%jazz%", 1, NULL)) AS 'jazz',
COUNT(IF(spl_2016.subject.subject LIKE "%rock%", 1, NULL)) AS 'rock',
COUNT(IF(spl_2016.subject.subject LIKE "%pop%", 1, NULL)) AS 'pop',
COUNT(IF(spl_2016.subject.subject LIKE "%country%", 1, NULL)) AS 'country',
COUNT(IF(spl_2016.subject.subject LIKE "%folk%", 1, NULL)) AS 'folk',
COUNT(IF(spl_2016.subject.subject LIKE "%electronic%", 1, NULL)) AS 'electronic',
COUNT(IF(spl_2016.subject.subject LIKE "%soul%", 1, NULL)) AS 'soul',
COUNT(IF(spl_2016.subject.subject LIKE "%blues%", 1, NULL)) AS 'blues',
COUNT(IF(spl_2016.subject.subject LIKE "%rap%", 1, NULL)) AS 'rap',
COUNT(IF(spl_2016.subject.subject LIKE "%musical%", 1, NULL)) AS 'musical'
FROM
spl_2016.subject,
spl_2016.outraw
WHERE
spl_2016.outraw.bibNumber = spl_2016.subject.bibNumber
AND itemtype LIKE "%cd"
AND deweyClass LIKE "78%"
GROUP BY date
ORDER BY date ASC
LIMIT 10000
Preliminary sketches
The basic concept of a radial representation came from past projects such as this one by April Cai. Checkouts about AI are represented by different colors into an interesting visual shape.
My design uses rectangles in the outline of a CD to represent checkouts.
My design uses rectangles in the outline of a CD to represent checkouts.
Final Result
Unfolded helix with dates and all genres displayed.
The same as above but at a different angle with higher helix space to separate genre data. The menu is expanded.
Data for the genres "rock" and "musical." Rock checkouts are about 10 times as numerous as those for musical on average. Both checkout rates have decreased over time.
Select genre data with shorter rectangle, visualized at 3 different inclines angles of the helix.
The same as above but at a different angle with higher helix space to separate genre data. The menu is expanded.
Data for the genres "rock" and "musical." Rock checkouts are about 10 times as numerous as those for musical on average. Both checkout rates have decreased over time.
Select genre data with shorter rectangle, visualized at 3 different inclines angles of the helix.
Code