Demonstrating Editorial Focus and Learning About Your Data - Data Visualization: A Successful Design Process - page 52

Here, we see an image taken from a visualization project that was created to
demonstrate the social expansion of the US using the story of the spread of post
offices. In this screenshot of the final piece, we see a representation of the 11,000+
post office locations recorded across the country between 1700 and 1900:
Image from "Posted: Visualizing US Expansion Through Post Offices" ( http://blog.dwtkns.
com/2011/posted/ ), created by Derek Watkins
The entire data for this project was scraped from the US Postal Service website.
After cross-referencing the dataset with a gazetteer to establish accurate
geo-locations, almost 1,500 records (12 percent) had to be discarded, as they
weren't readily "mappable".
This just shows the great amount of effort and pain that often goes in to sourcing and
preparing your data. No matter from where you are accessing your data, you will
often have to work hard to get it into the shape and form that you need it. Therefore,
you need to ensure you have factored in as much time as possible for this vital stage
of the process.