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Database of dreams. The lost quest to catalog humanity /

Just a few years before the dawn of the digital age, Harvard psychologist Bert Kaplan set out to build the largest database of sociological information ever assembled. It was the mid-1950s, and social scientists were entranced by the human insights promised by Rorschach tests and other innovative sc...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Clasificación:Libro Electrónico
Autor principal: Lemov, Rebecca
Formato: Electrónico eBook
Idioma:Inglés
Publicado: New Haven : Yale University Press, 2015.
Temas:
Acceso en línea:Texto completo
Descripción
Sumario:Just a few years before the dawn of the digital age, Harvard psychologist Bert Kaplan set out to build the largest database of sociological information ever assembled. It was the mid-1950s, and social scientists were entranced by the human insights promised by Rorschach tests and other innovative scientific protocols. Kaplan, along with anthropologist A.I. Hallowell and a team of researchers, sought out a varied range of non-European subjects-among remote and non-literate peoples around the globe and elsewhere. Recording their dreams, stories, and innermost thoughts in a vast database, Kaplan envisioned future researchers accessing the data through the cutting-edge Readex machine. Almost immediately, however, technological developments and the obsolescence of the theoretical framework rendered the project irrelevant, and eventually it was forgotten. In a scrupulously researched and captivating new book, Rebecca Lemov recounts the story of Kaplan's quest and brings to light an informative and disturbing chapter in the prehistory of Big Data.
Descripción Física:1 online resource (384 pages)
Bibliografía:Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN:9780300216646
0300216645