What Is Data?

Almost every organisation keeps written facts: names, phone numbers, dates, prices. A hospital keeps patient details. A school keeps a register. A shop keeps receipts.

Riverside Public Library in York must remember people who join and things it owns. We stay with this library for the whole course so each new idea can build on the last.

Amelia Hart copies membership forms onto cards at the desk. Oliver Bennett asks her to write exactly what each person wrote. George Clarke types the same forms into a spreadsheet.

If Amelia and George both copy carefully, they should end up with the same words and numbers.

Amelia copies Sophie Walsh, York, and 07700 900 123 onto a card. George types the same three answers into a spreadsheet. Those written answers are data.

Data is a collection of raw, unprocessed facts, numbers, words, or observations. They have not yet been given meaning. Sophie’s name, city, and phone are raw facts copied from the form. They are not yet an answer to a question such as “how many members live in York?”

Raw data is copied from a source without being changed or summed up. Amelia does not round the phone number. George does not shorten the name.

A useful test: two careful people copying from the same source should write the same words or numbers.

Structured data is raw data arranged in a fixed pattern. Each membership form asks the same questions in the same order: name, city, phone.

The pattern is not yet a database table. It is still paper. But the questions are already chosen, so every form has the same shape.

A visitor says, “The library feels busy today.” George writes “packed after four.” Amelia writes “the usual Saturday.” They did not copy the same sentence, because nothing exact was recorded. A feeling is not data.

If Oliver counts the loans in the register and writes 142 loans on Saturday, that count is data. Two people copying the register would both write 142.