Members with This Book
Most Helpful Reviews
see all reviews
Liked It1 of 1 members found this review helpful “I absolutely loved this book. I loved it enough to recommend David Weinberger for the keynote address at the 2008 ARMA International conference. Their folks are IT, records, legal, compliance, and information privacy professionals. The people at the conference talked about it all week, and he...” see full review » see other reviews » |
Newest Reviews
see all reviews-
“I loved it. Challenge my thinking. A lot of background information to support his ideas. This book will make you think about knowledge and information.”
jim w wrote this review Wednesday, November 11 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“An interesting read, although I do not think Weinberger made his point very clearly. The claim seems to be that the third order of information (digital) is miscellaneous, but really that simply seems to mean that there are even more ways of organizing info than before.”
Christina F wrote this review Tuesday, September 29 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“More than ever, knowledge is power, and as computerization and digitalization reshape society, the way knowledge is organized dictates how people obtain it and apply it. In this fascinating book, philosophy professor David Weinberger chronicles the history of changes in access to knowledge. He shows how Internet-based enterprises such as iTunes and Wikipedia reflect new rules of knowledge organization. This intellectually provocative and well-researched book explains the true impact of the information revolution. The only thing missing from this original, incisive and entertaining workbook is a glossary. While some readers may need other sources of information for certain technical definitions, getAbstract considers this book a must-read for anyone who wants to learn how the knowledge revolution has reshaped business and society. ”
getAbstract wrote this review Friday, September 4 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“So far this book is excellent. It is hard to put down, and it's a textbook! Weinberger's writing style is easy-going and straightforward. Love it so far.”
Rachael-Joy wrote this review Sunday, June 7 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“ David Weinberger’s Everything is Miscellaneous is an entertaining and superficial examination of the characteristics of information and how it has been organized by people historically, as well as in today’s world, and potentially in the future. The ways in which information has been stored and manipulated in the past are used by Weinberger as evidence that humans have been bending and shaping information to fit our limitations as atom-based beings. The author believes that in the new digital world information no longer needs to be contorted to fit human behavior and abilities; rather, information can be collected digitally (where it has fewer atoms) and left uncategorized.
Sarah Jean wrote this review Thursday, April 23 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
Weinberger wanders through time and place in his book, recalling the origins of modern organization, such as the alphabet, Dewey, Ranganathan, Mendeleev’s periodical table, and even as far back as Aristotle and Plato and their philosophical ideas about classification. In doing so, the author illuminates several behaviors inherent to human organization and the limitations of the physical items people have attempted to sort. Throughout the book Weinberger touches on dozens of different topics to defend his thesis. He jumps from century to century, from country to country, all in an attempt to provide examples of the history of information organization and the potential for organization in the future. The author uses practical, fascinating real world examples of many aspects of organization. His enthusiasm is sincere, which makes his argument very convincing. Although the examples are very helpful, they seem to be strung together with little effort to provide context or to defend an ultimately fuzzy thesis. Unfortunately, the book as a whole is too superficial to create a sustainable argument, especially for the library field.”
“Fascinating. This brilliant book covers every possible subject: science, history, business, culture, economics, technology, literature, you name it. Don't be fooled by the word "digital" in the title; this book is about much more than an internet fad. It's about how the idea of knowledge itself is changing. ”
Mimzy wrote this review Tuesday, April 14 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Interesting and enjoyable read, but short on big ideas.”
yardbird wrote this review Wednesday, January 21 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No“Everything is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder
itmagz i wrote this review Monday, December 22 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
David Weinberger
Times Books
Price: Rs 885.55/-
In the digital age, computers have become demonically good at sorting through gigantic, complex piles of information… The best digital strategy is to dump everything into one large miscellaneous pile and leave it to the machines to find exactly the table settings we need for tonight’s dinner.
What are the categories of photos on Flickr? Miscellaneous. Who are the authors contributing to the Wikipedia? Miscellaneous. Which stores sell their wares through eBay? Miscellaneous. Everything seems miscellaneous! It is so impossible to have a static classification of the varied information we find online today—yet, we almost always end up finding the things we want, quickly.
It’s not this convenient even at the best of physical supermarkets or libraries. David Weinberger explains that it is not easy to find what you want even in the world’s most renowned and classically maintained photo libraries such as the Bettmann Archive. In stark contrast, you can find over 32 photos of ‘car-crash art’ from amongst 225 million (and growing) miscellaneous photos on Flickr—in a jiffy. That is the power of miscellany—the new order of order, where messiness is a virtue.
Miscellaneous users put up miscellaneous photos, tagged or described by the miscellaneous keywords they like. One file can be in many places, and many files in one place. Yet, this miscellany works! And that is because we have amazing computer systems that can crawl through and sort this information so that it can be viewed by all users in precisely the way they want.
Weinberger speaks of awesome initiatives, such as Microsoft’s AURA project, which enables you to just click a picture of the barcode of a product on your cell phone, which will connect to the Internet and find whatever snippets of information it can, about that product!
With many more such examples, the author explains the logic behind the new order of miscellany and the technologies driving it. He also derives useful insights such as why smart companies no longer treat information as a guarded treasure, but set it free to be ‘mashed up’.
For those who have read other books of this genre, such as Wikinomics and The Long Tail, parts of this book might seem repetitive, but what the author is actually trying to do here is explain just one core aspect of the modern information age—the enormity and miscellany of information, which in a way, explains the logic behind many other phenomena including the ‘wisdom of the crowds’.
However, there is one problem you might face when you read the book—it is a bit miscellaneous! Sometimes the author seems to explain things so amazingly that you tend to lose the context. You need to pay attention, especially in the beginning, to understand his explanations of the first, second and third orders of order—else, it is difficult to follow the thread that weaves through the rest of the book.
- Janani Gopalkrishnan”1 of 1 members found this review helpful“I absolutely loved this book. I loved it enough to recommend David Weinberger for the keynote address at the 2008 ARMA International conference. Their folks are IT, records, legal, compliance, and information privacy professionals. The people at the conference talked about it all week, and he really got them thinking about the power of leveraging information in many different ways for personal, political, and business purposes.
Caleb Hummell wrote this review Thursday, October 30 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
This is a great read.”
