Page 250 - DLIS003_LIBRARY ADMINISTRATION AND MANAGEMENT

Unit 14: Library Statistics

14.1 History of Statistics Notes

The Word statistics have been derived from Latin word “Status” or the Italian word “Statista”,
meaning of these words is “Political State” or a Government. Shakespeare used a word Statist is
his drama Hamlet (1602). In the past, the statistics was used by rulers. The application of statistics
was very limited but rulers and kings needed information about lands, agriculture, commerce,
population of their states to assess their military potential, their wealth, taxation and other
aspects of government.

Gottfried Achenwall used the word statistik at a German University in 1749 which means that
political science of different countries. In 1771 W. Hooper (Englishman) used the word statistics
in his translation of Elements of Universal Erudition written by Baron B. F. Bieford, in his book.
Statistics has been defined as the science that teaches us –– what is the political arrangement of
all the modern states of the known world.
During the 18th century the English writers have used the word statistics in their works, so
statistics has developed gradually during last few centuries. A lot of work has been done in the
end of the nineteenth century.
At the beginning of the 20th century, William S. Gosset was developed the methods for decision
making based on small set of data. During the 20th century several statistician are active in
developing new methods, theories and application of statistics. Now these days the availability
of electronics computers is certainly a major factor in the modern development of statistics.

Notes There is a big gap between the old statistics and the modern statistics, but old
statistics also used as a part of the present statistics.

14.1.1 Overview of Statistics

By the 18th century, the term “statistics” designated the systematic collection of demographic
and economic data by states. In the early 19th century, the meaning of “statistics” broadened to
include the discipline concerned with the collection, summary, and analysis of data. Today
statistics is widely employed in government, business, and all the sciences. Electronic computers
have expedited statistical computation, and have allowed statisticians to develop “computer-
intensive” methods.
The relation between statistics and probability theory developed rather late, however. In the
19th century, statistics increasingly used probability theory, whose initial results were found in
the 17th and 18th centuries, particularly in the analysis of games of chance (gambling). By 1800,
astronomy used probability models and statistical theories, particularly the method of least
squares, which was invented by Legendre and Gauss. Early probability theory and statistics was
systematized and extended by Laplace; following Laplace, probability and statistics have been
in continual development. In the 19th century, statistical reasoning and probability models
were used by social scientists to advance the new sciences of experimental psychology and
sociology, and by physical scientists in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. The
development of statistical reasoning was closely associated with the development of inductive
logic and the scientific method.
Statistics can be regarded as not a field of mathematics but an autonomous mathematical science,
like computer science and operations research. Unlike mathematics, statistics had its origins in
public administration. It is used in demography and economics. With its emphasis on learning
from data and making best predictions, statistics has a considerable overlap with decision

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