Visualizing All ISBNs
145 comments
·January 10, 2025graypegg
abetusk
And there's a generalized Hilbert curve, the Gilbert curve, for non powers of two rectangular regions [0] (online demo [1]).
n2d4
What property makes the Hilbert curve desirable compared to, say, a snake pattern, with which neighbouring ISBNs are also neighbours in the visualisation?
The worry I have with Hilbert curves is that they make the result look like there are distinct "squares" of data [0] when really this is just an artifact of how Hilbert curves work. In that sense, the current visualization is more useful, because it's straightforward to identify the location of each country in it.
[0] https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jakubcerveny/gilbert/maste...
graypegg
In a snake pattern, the neighbouring pixels on the left and right are related, but the ones above and below have skipped a whole row.
And yeah that’s true! you end up with squares with Hilbert curves. But those squares are all « related » data. Then those squares are related to the squares near it. Zoom out more and that grouping of squares is related to the neighbouring macro-squares etc etc.
Basically the square shape is a positive. Kind of like how charting the derivative lets you see how random/related information is, grouping into these squares gives you a visualization of pattern-ness, rather than any specific measurement.
n2d4
> In a snake pattern, the neighbouring pixels on the left and right are related, but the ones above and below have skipped a whole row.
But this is also true in Hilbert curves across the boundaries of the "squares" that I mentioned. The two center pixels in the top row are much more distant than any two pixels would be in a snake pattern.
NooneAtAll3
> What property makes the Hilbert curve desirable compared to, say, a snake pattern, with which neighbouring ISBNs are also neighbours in the visualisation?
2D neighbourhood is better than 1D one
> The worry I have with Hilbert curves is that they make the result look like there are distinct "squares" of data
that's the point, tho? instead of distinct lines of taken ISBNs in a row, you get distinct squares if taken ISBNs in a row - much more noticeable
WillAdams
The thing is, ISBNs aren't hierarchical --- they are bought in blocks (or even individually at an exorbitant markup, says the guy who bought one to reprint a single book), so this doesn't show anything really interesting/useful.
A visualization using LoC or even Dewey Decimal would be far more useful, esp. if it also linked to public domain and copyright-free repositories/lists, say an interactive and visual version of John Mark Ockerbloom's:
est31
ISBN's are hierarchical, what do you mean? Like Gaul, ISBNs are divided into multiple parts, where one part is for the language, another is for the publisher, and the last is for the title. The last part is a checksum. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISBN#Overview
WillAdams
Yes, but this internal hierarchy for an issued number doesn't tell anything beyond those facts about a specific edition of a specific text.
One can't use ISBNs alone to create a hierarchical listing of texts which is useful for anything beyond browsing by language/publisher/order in which the ISBN was generated.
A visual and interactive representation of books by LoC or some other cataloging system would actually be useful.
PaulHoule
I got into an argument with the manager of South End Press back in '94 about whether 'Futuresplash' (soon to be Macromedia Flash) had a future, he thought it did and he was right.
Years later I was working at the library and got a little bit steamed because South End Press was reusing ISBN's after books went out of print which was allowed but, I think, lame.
One of my strategies for researching a topic is looking a few up in the OPAC, finding them in the stacks, and finding more books on the topic in those areas. (In the Library of Congress system, machine vision could be under QA56 with the rest of computer science or around TA1630, thus "areas".)
From time to time I've thought about trying to replicate the feel of this with some kind of UI given that our library moved a lot of the collection into deep archives and we have a very fast 'Borrow Direct' service with other peers)
convolvatron
totally agree, but thats not in the data. however, since blocks are assigned to agencies associated with countries and publishers, you might find some utility in showing coverage by likely language and/or country of origin and date.
MarceColl
It shows what they want to show, which is mostly how much of the world books they have. Hierarchical has nothing to do with it.
Finnucane
It only sort of shows that. ISBNs are issued by edition, not title, so many books would have more than one. And books published before 1970 or so might not be represented at all if they have no recent edition.
NoMoreNicksLeft
They can't even have a tiny fraction of the world's books. Each edition of the book gets a new ISBN... if a book is released as a paperback, hardback, kindle edition, pdf, and epub then there are supposed to be five ISBNs.
The vast, vast majority have only been released as dead-tree versions. They have none of those. The books they scan may have an ISBN, but the scans do not have them. Like all Project Gutenberg books, their books have no ISBNs at all. From a strict point of view, they've released new editions of these books.
nickelpro
Worthless semantics in the context of the mission of the project.
What you've described is that the archived content can be mapped to multiple ISBNs. It's clear the only element of concern here is the content itself. The failure to preserve a particular binding or printer's choice of typeface is irrelevant.
Failing to recognize this requires an almost malicious level of pedantry
mmooss
> The books they scan may have an ISBN, but the scans do not have them. Like all Project Gutenberg books, their books have no ISBNs at all. From a strict point of view, they've released new editions of these books.
Are you saying they actively remove ISBN numbers from scans? If I downloaded one of the books, it wouldn't have an ISBN?
Why? That seems like a bunch of extra processing per book, makes it harder for users to specifically identify a book, and probably does nothing for legality. Also, can people search by ISBN?
omoikane
One thing it shows is how ISBNs are allocated much faster than they are used, judging by the amount of black pixels.
The image contains 1000*800 pixels at 2500 ISBNs per pixel, so it's visualizing 2e9 ISBNs. ISBN-13 contains 12 digits plus one check digit, so we might have expected the image to be 500 times bigger/denser than the current image. The fact that it's at its current size suggests that only ISBNs with 978 and 979 prefixes are included, and since the bottom half is more sparse, that probably corresponds to the new 979 range.
skrebbel
I thought it was my color blindness that made me not able to distinguish between the red and green pixels as described (i only see red and black ones), but even with a browser extension that counters color blindness i can't distinguish more colors. Is this just me, or is the graph weird?
saithound
Fwiw (not color-blind) I can see red, green and black pixels. The graph doesn't look weird to the naked eye.
Find the interactive visualiser by scrolling down, and switch it to "Files in Anna's Archive [md5]". This will highlight the location of the green pixels in grey.
Muehe
If you have red-green blindness like me try this:
- Right-click the image and select "Inspect".
- Add a new CSS hue-rotate filter to the element:
element {
max-width: 100%;
margin: 0 auto;
filter: hue-rotate(-90deg);
}
superzamp
The graph seems to be alright, there are indeed red and (some) green pixels, looks like an issue with your extension unfortunately.
Finnucane
I am also color blind and the graph is not good.
rendx
I see green dots and a few lines of green dots. Did you try zooming in?
thaumasiotes
I see red, green, and a bit of yellow. I assume the yellow is what happens when the red and green pixels come too close to each other.
psychoslave
No idea of were the issue might land, but I can see the difference in colors.
asfasdfasdfn
The graphs are very easy to read, albeit depend on your ability to distinguish between red and green.
Can you change the green channel to blue to better view it?
glimshe
Anna's archive is one of the wonders of the world. If we almost destroyed our species but Anna's archive endured, there would be hope for a relatively expedient reconstruction.
wayathr0w
>relatively expedient reconstruction
If self-destruction is a necessary premise here, is that really a good thing?
jdblair
It appears that the IP of the server is blocked in the EU. I get this from my ISP (Ziggo, in the Netherlands):
Deze website is geblokkeerd
Europese sancties
De Raad van Europa heeft besloten dat de websites van RT (voorheen Russia Today) en Sputnik News niet meer mogen worden doorgegeven. De website die je probeert te bezoeken, valt onder deze Europese sanctie.
VodafoneZiggo is verplicht de sanctie uit te voeren en heeft de website geblokkeerd.
voytec
Works in Poland, but here you go:
https://web.archive.org/web/20250106112552/https://annas-arc...
jdblair
UPDATE: I updated my DNS server config (I run my own already) to use root DNS rather than forward to my ISP, problem solved.
hk__2
No issue here in France.
manosyja
Running your own recursive resolver has certain advantages…
jdblair
And I was so close! I just disabled forwarding to my ISP DNS on my home DNS, now there is no block.
usr1106
No issue in Finland.
billpg
Anyone else seeing this?
"This server couldn't prove that it's annas-archive.org; its security certificate is from *.hs.llnwd.net. This may be caused by a misconfiguration or an attacker intercepting your connection."
masfuerte
Yes. A DNS request for annas-archive.org to my ISP (EE in the UK) returns an address for www.ukispcourtorders.co.uk, which also gives a security warning. If I click through the warning on either site I get an HTTP 400 error.
According to Wikipedia, www.ukispcourtorders.co.uk used to list the blocked domains and the court orders responsible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_th...
c0balt
No, sounds like you are being mitm for them. Though the domain appears like a legitimate CDN.
usr1106
I get a valid-looking cert issued by Google Trust Services. Finnish ISP's DNS.
swores
Same for me
quink
Kind of hard to tell what corresponds to what in these graphs, maybe if someone could point out Bookland (i.e. 978), it would be a bit easier to orient oneself?
seszett
Making it easier to visualise is the whole point of the bounty announced by this post.
greenie_beans
is it illegal to download and use their isbn file? like what is wrong with having that information?
karel-3d
I don't think this page, which links to libgen and sci-hub, is that concerned about copyright.
greenie_beans
annoying non-answer to my question. i already know all about anna's archive. i'm asking if a person can download these isbns and use them to make data visualizations without fear of breaking a law? https://software.annas-archive.li/AnnaArchivist/annas-archiv...
qingcharles
Seeing as nobody has provided a real answer. The question is, maybe.
Anna's Archive is getting sued currently for scraping vast amounts of essentially public metadata which was being gate-keeped by a single organisation.
Here's the longer and more complicated answer for you:
https://libraries.emory.edu/research/copyright/copyright-dat...
karel-3d
Sorry, I misunderstood your question.
salomonk_mur
They explicitly provide that data for you to do as you wish. They are in a grey area, not you. You can download it no problem.
whataguy
> Each pixel represents 2,500 ISBNs. If we have a file for an ISBN, we make that pixel more green.
What do you mean by "more green"? I don't see any shaded green.
And I presume the black pixels are unregistered ISBNs?
slyall
I'd suggest you try a color blindness test. The green is very obvious, especially about 40% of the way down the whole image.
whataguy
No, I see the green, but I don't see any shaded green. Though this has probably to do that ISBNs are distributed in blocks and every pixel is either red or green?
lmm
If you look closely there are definitely some brownish pixels and some dim greens.
eporomaa
Hm, I got:
"...
European sanctions
The Council of Europe has decided that the websites of RT (formerly Russia Today) and Sputnik News may no longer be transmitted. The website you are trying to visit falls under this European sanction.
..."
reddalo
I think the website is censored at DNS level but they chose the wrong error page.
In Italy it just errors out with a NS_ERROR_CONNECTION_REFUSED.
flir
You're just cleared up a minor mystery I never bothered to investigate (BT, UK). Thanks.
Flipping DNS to 8.8.4.4 fixed it for now but I really need to move this connection to A&A.
TonyTrapp
Works fine here from a European IP.
jaapz
It's blocked at least in the Netherlands. Weirdly it mentions it being part of the sanctions against Russia, while from a cursory search I only found a judge ordering the site to be blocked because of copyright issues (thanks Brein). They probably just show the wrong error page?
Cthulhu_
Must be ISP specific, I'm also in NL and can access it fine.
rchard2scout
It's blocked by my corporate networking filter for me, in the category "Illegal downloads". So the Russian sanctions message is probably incorrect indeed.
rollulus
I'm also in NL. Ziggo's DNS server blocks it:
$ dig annas-archive.org @89.101.251.228
annas-archive.org. 360 IN CNAME unavailable.for.legal.reasons.
unavailable.for.legal.reasons. 339 IN A 213.46.185.10
powerhugs
Switch DNS to like 1.1.1.1 (Cloudflare) or 8.8.8.8 (Google)
usr1106
What is Anna's archive and why is it blocked by law enforcement in several European countries (EU + UK)?
ge96
Ooh prize money, D3 those are fun, where you can map a million things/zoom into it
I see that bounty at the bottom, so tossing away my chances here, but this visualization is just asking to be mapped onto a Hilbert Curve. [0] When you "stripe" the data like this, points that are sorted close together could end up pretty far apart, since a distance in the Y axis skips an entire row of data as you move down, rather than a distance in the X axis which is 1-to-1 with the source data.
If you map it onto a hilbert curve, the X and Y axis mean nothing, but visually points that are close together in the sorted list, will be visually close together in the output image.
Since the first part of an ISBN is the country, then the second part is the publisher, and the third part is the title, with a check sum at the end, I would remove the checksum and sort them each as a big number. (no hyphens)
You should end up with "islands", where you see big areas covered by big publishing countries, with these "islands" having bright spots for the publisher codes.
Bonus points for labeling these areas!
I set up something a while ago [1] for an interview that does this with weather data. It makes the seasons really obvious since they're all grouped together.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert_curve
[1] https://graypegg.com/hilbert (https://github.com/graypegg/hilbertcurveplayground code if anyone wants to go for the prize using this! Please at least mention me if you decide to reuse this code, but I can't stop ya lol)