-Edward R. Tufte's Information Visualization

Edward Tufte, the author of these three highly acclaimed books on statistics, information display systems, and visual communication, is a statistician and political scientist who taught at Princeton and Yale Universities. Tufte is currently Emeritus Professor of Political Science, Statistics, and Computer Science at Yale. He has consulted for many corporations and government units, including the Bureau of the Census, the Centers for Disease Control, the National Science Foundation, IBM, and The New York Times. Today, he is considered to be the leading authority on data design.

These three texts provide both historic and contemporary examples of data visualization, and were immensely useful in identifying content for the current exhibition. Tufte explains that his “three books on information design stand in the following relation:

          The Visual Display of Quantitative Information is about pictures of numbers, how to depict data and enforce statistical honesty.

          Envisioning Information is about pictures of nouns…[It] also deals with visual strategies for design: color, layering, and interaction effects.

          Visual Explanations is about pictures of verbs, the representation of mechanism and motion...of causes and effects…”

Edward Tufte donated these copies of his three self-published books to the Lehigh Libraries.

Edward R. Tufte (1942- ).
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information.
Cheshire, Conn.: Graphics Press, 1983.

Envisioning Information.
Cheshire, Conn.: Graphics Press, 1990.

Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative.
Cheshire, Conn.: Graphics Press, 1997.