How to Use The Database

The database of Voltaire’s library linked to this website and produced by the Voltaire Library Project is a new set of data. Entries from the 1961 catalogue served as the starting point for the spreadsheet, which eventually became the database.

Our aim with this database was to create a rich, new, and expanded dataset that could tell many different stories about Voltaire’s reading habits. You will find 148 data categories documenting authorship, dates, genres, formats, and publication. A number of steps have been taken to ensure precision in data analysis:

  1. Names: First and surnames have been split into separate columns.
  2. Dates:
    • Stated date: Stated date refers to the date found found, or stated, inside the text.
    • Actual date: Many of the texts were censored or at risk of being censored, and thus had to put a different date of publication from their true (‘Actual’).
    • Original date: One reason for differentiating between ‘Stated’ and ‘Original’ is that ancient and modern texts were reprinted. To capture their age and period, ‘Original’ date is included. This means that some texts will have the same ‘Stated’ and ‘Original’ dates. A second reason is that having a separate ‘Original’ date allows for easier dating in analysis.
  3. Subject codes: A major feature of the VLP database is the subject codes. These are a hierarchy, based on Robert Darnton’s classification of early modern texts. The top level of the hierarchy includes Subject Codes 1, 2, 3; the second level 1A, 2A, 3A; the third level 1B, 2B, 3B; and so on.

Additional features include VIAF and Geocode identifiers, which can be subsequently manipulated to produce visualisations in data analysis.

Most of the entries in the VLP database will not have information for every single category: thus, if a certain entry in the VLP database has fewer lines, it signifies that there was relevant information only for those categories found in the entry.

N.B., the database remains under development as we clean up the data and add missing information. Please take this under consideration when doing analysis on the data.