Stats: Wales data sources

Welsh Overview: http://wales.gov.uk/statistics-and-research/wales-summary/?lang=en

• 3.1 million people (mid 2011).
• The main urban areas are Cardiff (346,100), Swansea (239,000) and Newport (145,700).
• About 1 in 20 of the UK population live in Wales.
• The total land surface of Wales comprises nearly 2.1 million hectares, of which some 80 per cent is devoted to agriculture.
• Life expectancy from birth in Wales is 78.2 years for males and 82.2 years for females (2010-12).5
• Just over 52 per cent of local authority municipal waste was prepared for reuse, recycling or composting in 2012-13.8
• 1,656 maintained schools, and approx 465,000 pupils. More than 500 schools teach through the medium of Welsh.
• There were nearly 129,000 enrolments at higher education institutions in Wales in 2012/13.
• In 2013 there were 9.5 million sheep and lambs about one quarter of the UK total.
• There were around 35,200 babies born in 2012.
• Around one fifth of the population of Wales say they can speak Welsh.
• There were 9.6 million domestic UK tourist trips to Wales in 2012.

Need data on Wales?

Wales Government: http://wales.gov.uk/statistics-and-research/?lang=en
Data Unit Wales: http://www.dataunitwales.gov.uk/data
Stats Wales: https://statswales.wales.gov.uk/Catalogue
Census 2011: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/census/2011-census/key-statistics-for-unitary-authorities-in-wales/stb-2011-census-key-statistics-for-wales.html
NHS: http://www.wales.nhs.uk/statisticsanddata/sourcesofdata
Police: http://data.police.uk

A digital lib-bib-cell-hus

National Library of Wales [photo by Dylan Moore]

Library

Llyfrgell

Bibliotheque

Which will stand the test of time?

• Library (English) from librarium (Latin) - a chest for books.
• Llyfrgell (Welsh) - from Latin a cell for books.
• Bibliotheka - from Ancient Greek to Latin. Biblio- (from Byblos a port in today's Lebanon from where papyrus was imported to Greece) and -theke ( from Greek tithemi - to place or put).

We lost, in Middle English, bochus (from Old English) - a house for books.

In these digital days, do we need a place to store books, or a place to 'put' them. Printing a character on wood or paper seems quite similar to storing or 'printing' our digital data on magnetic or optical media - but we don't think of it like that very often and we can't see it without machines to translate back into our own languages. Our digital vaults (computer machine rooms) are more like the libraries of old - sealed, protected places where only the authorized may wander.

What about a digitheke - or is that the world-wide-web as we know it? The loss of the bibliothecary seems a shame, but lives on in the twittersphere - of course (@bibliothecary)

The Demise of Welsh History?

Huw Bowen's suggestions for sustainable Welsh History:

http://www.clickonwales.org/2014/12/the-strange-death-of-welsh-history/

There are many things that we could do, but here are two suggestions.

First, there should be an annual festival of Welsh history.  We seem to have festivals of virtually everything in Wales, but for some reason not Welsh history.  This is a major omission from the cultural calendar, and it is one that History Research Wales is well placed to rectify.

Second, there should be a properly funded Welsh Institute of Historical Research to serve the needs of communities, local councils, national institutions, and government.  It should be the ‘go-to’ place for advice on the history that informs the development of every single form of activity that takes place.  Such an institute would not only represent a ‘world first’ but also demonstrate that Wales is fully in touch with its past and properly understands its place in the broader scheme of things.

Living Labs

http://www.openlivinglabs.eu

The European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL) is the international federation of benchmarked Living Labs in Europe and worldwide. Founded in November 2006 under the auspices of the Finnish European Presidency, the network has grown in ‘waves’ up to this day. To this date, 8 Waves have been launched, resulting in 370 accepted Living Labs. The ENoLL international non-profit association, as the legal representative entity of the network, is headquartered in Brussels, at the heart of Europe.

What is a Living Lab?

A Living Lab is a real-life test and experimentation environment where users and producers co-create innovations. Living Labs have been characterised by the European Commission as Public-Private-People Partnerships (PPPP) for user-driven open innovation. A Living Lab employs four main activities: 

1. Co-Creation: co-design by users and producers 
2. Exploration: discovering emerging usages, behaviours and market opportunities 
3. Experimentation: implementing live scenarios within communities of users 
4. Evaluation: assessment of concepts, products and services according to socio-ergonomic, socio-cognitive and socio-economic criteria.

Future Everything Festival (link)

FutureEverything is an award-winning innovation lab for digital culture and annual festival, established in Manchester in 1995. For almost 20 years FutureEverything has been exploring the meeting point of technology, society and culture which lies at the heart of the digital debate. Through a community network and regular events it makes connections between thinkers, developers, coders, artists, designers, urbanists and policy makers – inspiring them to experiment and to collaborate in new ways.

The FutureEverything festival brings people together to discover, share and experience new ideas for the future. Pioneering the practice of city-wide ‘festival as laboratory’ it combines a large scale cultural event – encompassing art, music and discussion – with new technology, novel research methods and playful social experiments. It has been named by The Guardian as one of the top ten ideas festivals in the world.