Informatica: Mastering Information Through the Ages - Couverture souple

Wright, Alex

 
9781501768675: Informatica: Mastering Information Through the Ages

Synopsis

Informatica--the updated edition of Alex Wright's previously published Glut--continues the journey through the history of the information age to show how information systems emerge. Today's "information explosion" may seem like a modern phenomenon, but we are not the first generation--or even the first species--to wrestle with the problem of information overload. Long before the advent of computers, human beings were collecting, storing, and organizing information: from Ice Age taxonomies to Sumerian archives, Greek libraries to Christian monasteries.

Wright weaves a narrative that connects such seemingly far-flung topics as insect colonies, Stone Age jewelry, medieval monasteries, Renaissance encyclopedias, early computer networks, and the World Wide Web. He suggests that the future of the information age may lie deep in our cultural past.

We stand at a precipice struggling to cope with a tsunami of data. Wright provides some much-needed historical perspective. We can understand the predicament of information overload not just as the result of technological change but as the latest chapter in an ancient story that we are only beginning to understand.

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À propos de l?auteur

Alex Wright is a writer, designer, and researcher whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Salon, and elsewhere. He is the author of Cataloging the World.

Les informations fournies dans la section « A propos du livre » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

Autres éditions populaires du même titre

9780801475092: Glut: Mastering Information Through the Ages

Edition présentée

ISBN 10 :  0801475090 ISBN 13 :  9780801475092
Editeur : Cornell University Press, 2008
Couverture souple