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E-book
Author Lemov, Rebecca

Title Database of dreams. The lost quest to catalog humanity / Rebecca Lemov
Published New Haven : Yale University Press, 2015
©2015

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Description 1 online resource (384 pages)
Contents Introduction -- Paperwork of the Inner Self -- The Varieties of Not Belonging -- The Storage of the Very, Very Small -- Data Mining in Zuni -- Possible Future Worlds -- The Double Experiment -- "I Do Not Want Secrets. ... I Only Want Your Dreams" -- Not Fade Away (A History of the Life History) -- New Encyclopedias Will Arise -- Brief Golden Age -- Conclusion
Summary 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
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Print version record
Subject Kaplan, Bert, 1919-2006
Psychology -- Data processing -- History -- 20th century
Psychology -- Research -- History -- 20th century
Dreams -- Data processing -- History -- 20th century
Sociology -- Data processing -- History -- 20th century
Sociology -- Research -- History -- 20th century
Big data -- History -- 20th century
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Essays.
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Reference.
Big data
Psychology -- Data processing
Psychology -- Research
Sociology -- Data processing
Sociology -- Research
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780300216646
0300216645