I heard about this book via Audrey Driscoll’s review, and she recommended it to anyone interested in information management. Well, I’m interested in information management! So, naturally I had to read it.
The book includes a brief history of libraries across the world, before zeroing in on the United States’ Library of Congress, and how it evolved from essentially Thomas Jefferson’s personal collection to housing an unparalleled assortment of books, documents, and so on. It wasn’t always an easy road, as shown by the struggles at cataloging and the efforts made by people like Melville Dewey (a man so obsessed with efficient labeling that he for a time spelled his name “Melvil Dui”) to create a system for managing all of it.
Yes, indeed; this book is paean to library science that should make any archivist proudly proclaim, like Evie Carnahan in The Mummy, “I am a librarian!”
The most interesting fact of all that I learned from this book comes from a little note towards the back, referencing the Mundaneum. The Mundaneum was, in effect, a non-electronic internet, created by Belgian lawyers in the 1900s. It was, essentially, a database. In the 1930s, there were even early plans to make it accessible remotely.
The name “Mundaneum” is just so perfect, don’t you think? We ought to start calling the internet “Mundaneum 2.0” as far as I’m concerned. It captures the spirit much better.
Now, as I said, I am interested in information management. What may surprise you is that I am interested in information management in much the same way that Robert Muldoon was interested in velociraptor management. Information, you see, is a dangerous thing.
Of course, unlike velociraptors, information is critical to human life. We need information, and a way to store and retrieve it.
The science of cataloging and accessing information now takes up vastly more of our lives than it used to in historic times. The reason we don’t notice this is that it has evolved more or less concurrently with advances in electronic systems designed to expedite this process. “Anything can be quantified nowadays.”
All of which is to say that there is something about the entire process of information management that feels slightly inhuman to me.
“Big Data,” cloud computing, advanced analytics, and of course our new friend Artificial Intelligence are all refinements on methods of organizing and cataloging information. As this books shows, from the ancient Sumerians on, information management is a practice that has been steadily progressing over time.
But when I say “progressing”… is it progressing the way a garden gradually grows and becomes filled with nourishing food and beautiful flowers? Or is it progressing the way a malignant tumor does? Marc Andreessen said software is eating the world; perhaps it’s more accurate to say information is eating the world.
Is this good or bad? Like Zhou Enlai didn’t, but should have, said of the impact of the French Revolution, it may be too early to say. On the other hand, it might be too late. Or maybe both at once…?
You see what kind of weird and dangerous tricks you can play with information? You came here probably expecting a simple review of a book about libraries. “That seems like a dry enough topic; he can’t make too much of a mountain out of this molehill,” you may have thought. Sorry! Perhaps the wisest course would be to go outside and touch the damn grass already.
That book really inspired you!
You’re right! I had to edit this review pretty heavily… I started rambling on even more than usual. 😀
Agreed. Along with the Sumerians down the ages other commentators and historians with specific agendas have been taking facts out of context along with rumours so old they became folklore and presenting this ‘information’ as ‘how things truly happened’. They put these into book form and other folk start to quote them in their own works and so on.
As you point out now we have computers the Agenda Spread can move much faster and as long as the author indicates or suggests by the magic words ‘Government Coverup’ up go the sales and in come the bucks.
Where possible we should not use just one source to get more than one side. Where there is only one source available, we should study and study it not for just the message but the motivation behind the message.
Tough call.
Stay sharp.
Wise words!
Thanks
Just like Audrey, I am a retired catalog librarian (pre-computer age) who studied all the rules and knew how to take an unfamiliar book and create a record, complete with subject headings, to be entered in a card catalog. I was thinking the other day how we were creating an internet of our own, albeit one that is clunkier than Google and much slower to utilize but nevertheless comparable. These days you can type in a word and in a blink of an eye get references to every place that word has ever appeared in (at least) standard sources. It’s the lazy person’s card catalog. I must confess that when I started researching the books I’ve written, I was happy to have an electronic internet! Sure speeded things up! Besides, I went over to my college library to research insects and termites specifically, and they had nothing except a few standard textbooks, some Government docs, and some journal references which I would have had to get on interlibrary loan. The internet was loaded with information on termites! My conclusion is, libraries should become archives, housing on paper all the information in the world, so that when the big meltdown of civilization comes and there is no more power grid and all the electronic sources are lost, something of ancient knowledge will be preserved (as in The Mote in God’s Eye).
I like how you think! 🙂
The Mote in God’s Eye, good book.
In my freshman year at college, ca. 1968, for underclassmen to get a book out of the University of Wisconsin’s Memorial library you had to go to the card catalog, find a book that sounded like what you were interested in, write out a request for it, and hand that request in for a staff member to fetch the book for you. A year later we students were allowed into the “stacks”, and could explore 7 floors of books. So many interesting things to discover! The internet has done the same thing on a much grander scale. And now there’s YouTube… So many interesting things to learn! Whatever the cost, the price is worth it.
Can’t argue with that! 🙂
Oh, the days of standing at the cabinet and thumbing through them. Remember periodical review?
Brings back memories!
This does sound interesting!
(My spouse had some medical stuff going on this summer, so I’m way behind on blog hopping).
It’s a very interesting book. I think you would like it.
And it’s very good to hear from you. I hope your spouse is doing well now! 🙂