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.