Here is a word cloud representing James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans; A narrative of 1757. It is a trivial example of how libraries can provide services against documents, not just the documents themselves.

scout  heyward  though  duncan  uncas  little  without  own  eyes  before  hawkeye  indian  young  magua  much  place  long  time  moment  cora  hand  again  after  head  returned  among  most  air  huron  toward  well  few  seen  many  found  alice  manner  david  hurons  voice  chief  see  words  about  know  never  woods  great  rifle  here  until  just  left  soon  white  heard  father  look  eye  savage  side  yet  already  first  whole  party  delawares  enemy  light  continued  warrior  water  within  appeared  low  seemed  turned  once  same  dark  must  passed  short  friend  back  instant  project  around  people  against  between  enemies  way  form  munro  far  feet  nor  

About the story

While I am not a literary scholar, I am able to read a book and write a synopsis.

Set during the French And Indian War in what was to become upper New York State, two young women are being escorted from one military camp to another. Along the way the hero, Natty Bumppo (also known by quite a number of other names, most notably “Hawkeye” or the “scout”), alerts the convoy that their guide, Magua, is treacherous. Sure enough, Magua kidnaps the women. Fights and battles ensue in a pristine and idyllic setting. Heroic deeds are accomplished by Hawkeye and the “last of the Mohicans” — Uncas. Everybody puts on disguises. In the end, good triumphs over evil but not completely.

Cooper’s style is verbose. Expressive. Flowery. On this level it was difficult to read. Too many words. In the other hand the style was consistent, provided a sort of pattern, and enabled me to read the novel with a certain rhythm.

There were a couple of things I found particularly interesting. First, the allusion to “relish“. I consider this to be a common term now-a-days, but Cooper thought it needed elaboration when used to describe food. Cooper used the word within a relatively short span of text to describe condiment as well as a feeling. Second, I wonder whether or not Cooper’s description of Indians built on existing stereotypes or created them. “Hugh!”

Services against texts

The word cloud I created is simple and rudimentary. From my perspective, it is just a graphical representation of a concordance, and a concordance has to be one of the most basic of indexes. This particular word cloud (read “concordance” or “index”) allows the reader to get a sense of a text. It puts words in context. It allows the would-be reader to get an overview of the document.

This particular implementation is not pretty, nor is it quick, but it is functional. How could libraries create other services such as these? Everybody can find and get data and information these days. What people desire is help understanding and using the documents. Providing services against texts such as word clouds (concordances) might be one example.