Hi Nancy: Statistical analysis isn't my thing, but I do have some thoughts:
- Only a small number of people buy single topic lace-making books, but when bobbin lace is included in a book with a wider-ranging content - take Weldon's Encyclopedia of Needlework, for instance; or de Dillmont's, - it might look like all of a sudden a lot of bobbin lace books are being published, but really a lot of books that include bobbin lace as one of many topics are being published. - I'm wondering if the 1960 spike isn't perhaps something to do with the Anchor Manual of Needlework coming out in 1958. That edition included lacework. - I wonder if the database counts each subsequent edition of the same book as a new book (after all, in modern times it would have a new ISBN number) So the books that have had many editions (all those mentioned so far, for example) might be included once for each edition. - Sometimes a book comes out that is insignificant on its own, but sows seeds of enquiry. Then a few years later suddenly several books come out, to fill the demand from people who learned from the first book and then discovered there weren't any more books on their topic. - I'm not really sure what the measurement is in the vertical axis of the chart. I've been assuming it is the percentage of the books included in the database that contain the keyword. If so, to some extent the graph tracks the social acceptability and popularity of the subject. Today we might be surprised if a scholarly discussion of craft contained anything about lace, but 150 years ago the topic crops up in all sorts of publications - like books on industrial design, for example, as new lace machines were being made and people like Christopher Dresser were designing for them. - Regarding the dates - A lot of books published, even in the beginning of the 20th century, didn't have accurate publication dates printed in them. Sometimes there was no publication data at all, and you have to guess at when it was published by looking at the printing and the illustrations and the cover and so on. So the big jump at "1900" makes me suspect that the people who put the data in the database just looked at a book and said something like "Well, judging from the cover design it's probably later than the 1880s and judging from the illustrations it's probably pre-WWI so let's put down 1900". An interesting topic! Thanks for bringing it up. Adele North Vancouver, BC (west coast of Canada) > Now what I would like to know is why is there such a spike in the frequency > of > the phrase "bobbin lace" in books in English in 1958 to 1960? and also a > narrow > one at 1900? (too narrow to be just the general lace revival I think) - To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachne.modera...@gmail.com
