Methodology

The chosen methodology was similar to those used in other literary cartographic projects, particularly The Space of Slovenian Literary Culture. This methodology is divided into three stages: collection and selection of relevant data; design of a database as structural basis for the maps; and divulgation and discussion of the results through interactive dashboards.

Data collection was done through bibliographic research focused on the literary relations of the selected period. A fundamental guide for this process was IStReS – Iberian Studies Reference Site, which collects published bibliography after the year 2000 in the Iberian Studies field.

The following step was designing the database, where relevant information was introduced and distributed in seven data tables: Authors, Periodical publications, Works and texts, Institutions, Events, and Meetings.

Fig. 1 – Data tables and example of the structure of the “Works and Texts” table.

The table “Personalities” works as the fundamental one, which means that all the other tables are connected with it, directly or indirectly, because authors are the intended active agents of the network structure. On the other hand, the tables “Editors,” “Participants” and “Members” (as seen in Fig. 2) are complementary, respectively, to the tables “Publications,” “Events,” and “Institutions,” thus allowing to associate more than one personality to them (and avoiding duplication of information in the principal tables).

Fig. 2 – Database structure

As seen on the table “Personalities” (Fig. 3), each one of the tables has at least one geographic element, described firstly as text (with two different fields to include possible alterations of historic toponyms) and coded secondly as latitude and longitude coordinates, so each item can be properly visualized on a map. The precision of these geographic data depends on different variables (birth place, publication place, event location, etc.), but it also depends on the information available for each case.

Fig. 3 – Exemplo da estrutura de uma das tabelas da base de dados

Data visualization was done through interactive dashboards (available on the “Maps” section of this site) based on Leaflet technology. They were designed to allow the maximum possible freedom of access and interaction for the user. During the upcoming months we will continue to explore different visualization possibilities with different tools, as well as data sub-categories from the main database.