51 thumbs up
My goals: To know more than Ken Jennings; and to remain humble. Smile

David Weinberger's "Everything is Miscellaneous"

David Weinberger says that "Everything is Miscellaneous," and that the messy Internet is superior to organized libraries.  Do you agree?


Would you like to answer or comment?

Sign up for a free account, or sign in (if you're already a member).
  • 746 views
Share Send to a friend Watch Report
 

Best Answer

 
8 thumbs up

First of all you have to recognize that David knows more than all of us. After that everything is easy.  In this instance I believe he is correct, and his statement invites questioning and discussion.

The web is organized on a many-to-many (and therefore messy) topology. Libraries are organized on a one (you) to many (the books) and much neater and easier sometimes to deal with, but also limited in what they can offer since they rely on some one or thing to enter all the data (i.e. books) and then index what has been entered (and in a timely way.) Also  our wonderful and senitmenal libraries may not index all of the possible references to a given source, and so our searches there may not find what we are looking for.

 The web on the other hand has robots that do the indexing for us on a microsecond basis every day all day. That's the good news. The bad news is we do not yet have good enough filters to fine tune our searches and so we get links and references to many things we don't care about - we become a human complier if you will allow such a metaphor. This will change as AI improves and our local computer plus the giant indexers in the sky learn our habits and tastes. 

The good news on the poor filters of today is that we also get serendipity and see things we wouldn't normally look for which may lead us to new lines of thought, investigation, or just the joy of discovery. 

Jon Peddie 

 


Posted 1 year ago ( permalink )
In reply to Rebecca.C's question
jonpeddie was invited by Yedda to answer this question.

Rated as
Best Answer
0
8

Helpful?

line
line
line


 

All Answers

Order by
 
51 thumbs up
My goals: To know more than Ken Jennings; and to remain humble. Smile

What if many librarians (and other information professionals) collaborated on classifying and indexing information, using the latest technology?  (I suppose that's what they do now, to some extent, on OCLC's WorldCat.)  Wouldn't such a project be valuable -- a giant library for the world?


Posted 1 year ago ( permalink )
In reply to jonpeddie's answer
Rated as
#4 out of 5
0
0

Helpful?

line
line
line



 
1 thumb up
The power of Simplicity

The accumulative experience in the organization is more then just "Miscellaneous". This experience can provide very specific solutions and answers that specifically suitable to the specific organization. The experience of every member in the organization is accumulated in terms of years and suitable exactly to this organization. This knowledge could be a treasure for the specific organization and

garbage to the rest. Sometime you can match similar information that same types of organizations can share. The wisdom of how to categorize information is not yet internationally standardized. The result of diminishing the significant of a specific accumulative experience and knowledge, cause CEOs to downsize the organization manpower without taking into account the lost of knowledge that will affect the organization in the long term. I don't agree with the term "anyone is replaceable" since everyone holds a degree of specific knowledge. Sharing this knowledge and categorizing it can reduce the effect of human resources lost in the organization.

Posted 1 year ago ( permalink )
In reply to Rebecca.C's question
dudy was invited by Yedda to answer this question.

Rated as
#2 out of 5
0
1

Helpful?

line
line
line



 

And yet it's so much easier to find things online then in a library. Not only the internet is in your house, but also, keywords and tags and search engines are easier for me to use then a library search system.

I remember on my first year in art school, we had a library orientation class - 3 or 4 meetings of a librarian to just teach us how to use the library. While learning how to use google takes about 3 seconds.

I think that the library system is very logic, however, it seem to be the human brain uses many different types of thinking - logical thinking is just one of them. And so the internet - that have a lot if different search options, is somehow a lot more intuitive then a library.


Posted 1 year ago ( permalink )
In reply to Rebecca.C's question
Rated as
#3 out of 5
0
1

Helpful?

line
line
line



 
51 thumbs up
My goals: To know more than Ken Jennings; and to remain humble. Smile

Thank you all for this productive discussion.  I believe that "Everything is Miscellaneous" will provoke much debate.  I'll take a compromise view, quoting The Virtual Chase: "when formal classification codes are combined with input from the general public, the result can be quite useful."  (

Semantic Web: Can We Achieve the Vision?)

Posted 1 year ago ( permalink )
Rated as
#5 out of 5
0
0

Helpful?

line
line
line