Unearthing the recent past : digitising and understanding statistical information from census tables

Clausner, C ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6041-1002, Hayes, J, Antonacopoulos, A ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9552-0233 and Pletschacher, S ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-0968 2017, Unearthing the recent past : digitising and understanding statistical information from census tables , in: Second International Conference on Digital Access to Textual Cultural Heritage (DATeCH 2017), 01 - 02 June 2017, Goettingen, Germany.

PDF - Published Version Restricted to Repository staff only Download (718kB) | Request a copy

Abstract

Censuses comprise a wealth of information at a large (national) scale that allow governments (who commission them) and the public to have a detailed snapshot of how people live (geographical distribution and characteristics). In addition to underpinning socioeconomic research, the study of historical Census statistics provides a unique opportunity to understand several characteristics in a country and its heritage. This paper presents an overview of a complete account of the background, challenges, implemented preprocessing, recognition and post-processing pipeline, and the information-rich results obtained through a pilot digitisation project on the 1961 Census of England and Wales (the first time computers were used to process data and output very detailed information, a vital part of which is only available in the form of degraded historical computer printouts). The experience gained and the resulting methodology can also be used for digitising and understanding tabular information in a large variety of application scenarios.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Additional Information:	Proceedings ISBN 978-1-4503-5265-9
Schools:	Schools > School of Computing, Science and Engineering
Journal or Publication Title:	Proceedings of Second International Conference on Digital Access to Textual Cultural Heritage (DATeCH 2017)
Publisher:	ACD Digital Library
Related URLs:	Organisation
Funders:	Office for National Statistics
Depositing User:	Mr Christian Clausner
Date Deposited:	07 Aug 2017 09:06
Last Modified:	15 Feb 2022 22:19
URI:	https://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/43461

Actions (login required)

Edit record (repository staff only)