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Katy Börner: Atlas of science: visualizing what we know

2011; Springer Nature (Netherlands); Volume: 88; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/s11192-011-0409-7

1588-2861

Loet Leydesdorff,

Scientific Computing and Data Management

a wonderful book about visualization that makes our field of scientometrics accessible to much larger audiences.The book is to be read in relation to the ongoing series of exhibitions entitled ''Places and Spaces: Mapping Science'' currently touring the world.The book also provides the scholarly background to the exhibitions.It celebrates scientometrics as the discipline in the background that enables us to visualize the evolution of knowledge as the acumen of human civilization.Katy Bo ¨rner is deeply anchored in the tradition of the Enlightenment.In addition to Garfield and many of our other colleagues, Diderot and d'Alembert are prominently mentioned and indeed the book can be read as another Encyclopedia: one adapted for the internet age with its emphasis on access and visualization.As most of us know, the longterm project covers also the Networkbench (NWB) and the many other tools and platforms generated at the Cyberinfrastructure for Network Science (http://cns.iu.edu) of the School of Library and Information Sciences (Indiana University, Bloomington, IN).Open-source software is thus made available systematically in an integrated environment.This major effort and strong development has now been ongoing for more than 7 years and the results pervade quantitative science studies, network analysis, and the various neighbouring fields.The book's focus is wider than these scholarly disciplines and begins with Ptolemy and the other classics of building maps-of the earth, the heavens, and the sciences that study them.However, the focus shifts quickly to modern time and the wealth of illustrationswhich are also made available online at http://scimaps.org/atlas/maps-makes the book attractive for the general audience.This is the only book in my library that I can read successfully with my granddaughter.