DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.15054032
title: Marine Species Survey in Along the Waterfront (Albert Campbell, 1934-1942)

description: Overview

This .xlsx file contains a survey of marine species mentioned in a sample of articles from Along the Waterfront, a column in the Monterey Peninsula Herald written by Albert Campbell that ran from 1934-1942. The columns themselves are available through the Monterey Public Library's collection of Historical Newspapers and specifically through the Digital Reel service, as of April 14 2025. Our group downloaded page scans of the columns, but we are unable to share these because they are still under copyright.

Data structure

Along the Waterfront

Each row corresponds to a mention of an organism in some document (i.e., issue of the column), corresponding to an observation of that organism's presence in the newsprint ecosystem. There thus are often multiple rows for a single document if multiple species are mentioned in it. The fields are as follows.

Searcher: A tag indicating who read the document. Anonymized for privacy.

Source: Indicates the source of the document. All are from Along the Waterfront.

Filename: The filename as recorded in our downloaded page scans. Note that these contain the date and sometimes the page of the column, enabling reconstruction of our copyrighted data set and replication of our survey. When there are multiple files with the same name followed by a trailing "_1" and "_2," the column was split across two pages, and we recorded whether mentions occurred on the first page containing the column or the second.

Organism mention: The name used to refer to the organism in the document, generally but not always a common name. NA means that no marine organism was mentioned in the entire document. Note that we do not record how many times an organism was mentioned in a document, only that it was mentioned at least once.

Standardized name: A taxonomic name corresponding to the organism name, generated through a formula linked to the "Standardized Names" tab. See that tab for details.

Humans NOT Present: A flag for the very rare documents that did not mention any humans. 

Specific or Abstract: A tag classifying whether the marine organism mentioned is a specific, concrete lifeform (e.g., an actual sardine or sardines that were caught) or an abstract, generalized reference to the species, group, etc. (e.g., listing names of salmon species), some item or concept related to it (e.g., the sardine fleet, the abalone business), or related cultural term (e.g., a "whale" of a New Year). The "Notes on reference-optional" often clarifies the reference.

Intertidal: A tag classifying whether the marine organism's primary habitat is in the intertidal zone, generated through a formula linked to the "Standardized Names" tab. See that tab for details.

Notes on reference-optional: An optional comment on how the organism is mentioned, occasionally with additional commentary to help locate unusual or noteworthy mentions.

Standardized Names

Each row corresponds to a name used for an organism at least once in Along the Waterfront, then matches it to a standardized taxonomic name, with further information about the name and habitat.

Organism Mention: The name used in the text of the newspaper.

Standardized Name: A corresponding standardized name, at the greatest level of specificity possible. NA means that the mention cut across so many taxonomic groups that no corresponding standardized name exists (e.g., for "fish").

Taxonomic Specificity: The taxonomic rank that the standardized name corresponds to.

Source: The source used to connect the mention and a standardized name, as well as to inform the "Intertidal" field.

Intertidal: A tag indicating whether species primarily inhabits the intertidal zone. Y is for organisms inhabiting the intertidal, N for those elsewhere, and M for ambiguous and unclassifiable cases. For ranks larger than species, we used the primary habitat across the group (e.g., sardines or Clupeidae are Y), even if some members of the group do not dwell in the intertidal (e.g., barnacles or Cirripedia are also Y). Groups that are either too large and varied to place in the intertidal (e.g., slugs or Gastropoda) or that move in and out of the intertidal (e.g., sea lions or Otariidae) are marked M. Thus, while perfect precision is not possible here, this field enables an estimate of how often the whole series of documents discusses intertidal organisms.

Notes: Optional field with further explanation for unclassifiable or hard-to-classify cases.

ArticlesOnIntertidal

This sheet is the result of a filter that includes only those rows in "Along the Waterfront" that include an organism inhabiting the intertidal, in order to set up the "Calculation" tab.

ArticlesOnSardines

This sheet is the result of a filter that includes only those rows in "Along the Waterfront" that mention "sardine," in order to set up the "Calculation" tab.

Calculations

This sheet finds the number of unique filenames in the "ArticlesOnIntertidal" and "ArticlesOnSardines" tabs in order to compare how many documents mention each kind of organism. The findings are used in the manuscript.