This project is being developed to serve a few different ends. Technologically and practically it is an experiment with d3.js and a self-learning tool. Though I have architected and designed many client sites, this is the first I am building for myself. I expect it to be an ongoing sandbox for code and methods of visualization and as such to be a respite from the rigors of "official" design.

More personally, the books represented in these pages are my library. To indicate the depth of my sentiment for these musty pages, I can talk about my years as an editor or my semicolon tattoo; I can talk about the bookstores that inhabit my mind more strongly than the people with whom I visited them. If I were a different kind of artist, I could build a monument to the thousands of stairs I carried them up in my years in New York. But instead I am this kind of person, and so I remember them in data.

While creating the CSV that powers the site, I enjoyed the opportunity to remember my library — and with it my past. One by one, I handled each volume, taking its measurements, measuring my response. I recalled the places I made these purchases and the hopes that underlay them. In investigating these physical artifacts, I hope to also investigate my current and former understanding of myself. And to play with javascript some more.

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