Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital DisorderBusiness visionary and bestselling author David Weinberger shows how the digital revolution is radically changing the way we make sense of our lives Human beings are information omnivores: we are constantly collecting, labeling, and organizing data. But today, the shift from the physical to the digital is mixing, burning, and ripping our lives apart. In the past, everything had its one place--the physical world demanded it--but now everything has its places: multiple categories, multiple shelves. Simply put, everything is suddenly miscellaneous. In Everything Is Miscellaneous, David Weinberger charts the new principles of digital order that are remaking business, education, politics, science, and culture. In his rollicking tour of the rise of the miscellaneous, he examines why the Dewey decimal system is stretched to the breaking point, how Rand McNally decides what information not to include in a physical map (and why Google Earth is winning that battle), how Staples stores emulate online shopping to increase sales, why your children's teachers will stop having them memorize facts, and how the shift to digital music stands as the model for the future in virtually every industry. Finally, he shows how by "going miscellaneous," anyone can reap rewards from the deluge of information in modern work and life. From A to Z, Everything Is Miscellaneous will completely reshape the way you think--and what you know--about the world. |
Contents
Information in Space | 1 |
The New Order of Order | 8 |
Alphabetization and Its Discontents | 24 |
The Geography of Knowledge | 46 |
Lumps and Splits | 64 |
The Laws of Jungle | 84 |
Smart Leaves | 107 |
Social Knowing | 129 |
Other editions - View all
Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder David Weinberger Limited preview - 2007 |
Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder David Weinberger Limited preview - 2008 |
Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder David Weinberger No preview available - 2007 |
Common terms and phrases
Adler alphabetical Amazon Aristotle arXiv atoms Available bar code Bettmann blog Britannica Classification system cluster complex Corbis created customers Dewey Decimal Dewey Decimal Classification Dewey's edition editors Eleanor Rosch encyclopedia everything example experts explicit faceted classification fact Flickr Friendster Hamlet ideas implicit interests Internet iTunes Joshua Schachter knowledge label librarians Linnaeus Linnaeus's look LSID lumping and splitting meaning Melvil Dewey mess messy metadata million miscellaneous Mortimer Adler nature order of order organization paper percent person philosophy physical pile planet playlist Propaedia prototype relationships RFID Rosch S. R. Ranganathan says second order second-order Semantic Semantic Web shelves silverware social someone sort species tags tell there's things third order third-order tion topic tree users what's Wikipedia word