 |
"We thought that knowledge was scarce when
in fact, it was just that our shelves were too small."--Weinberger |
If you are in any way involved in the creation, conveyance, curation or management of knowledge, then you must read David Weinberger's Too Big Too Know. Weinberger examines how knowledge has been "bound" for millennia in scrolls, manuscripts, books, libraries and even in footnotes. Bound physically, socially, and politically too. Each technological innovation has scaled knowledge's reach and has ultimately changed existing power structures around it. Today, we are riding a tectonic shift--knowledge is now a "network of connections" bringing with it the challenges that we have never encountered before now. So what's new here that we didn't already know?
What is new is Weinberger's unique and sharp focus on the implications of knowledge itself being a network and the big challenges that emerge therefrom. He doesn't pretend to have answers but asks great questions along the way. Before now, innovations to the infrastructure of knowledge were at the mercy of time and happenstance--innovations like the printing press or radio but today we are in a position to shape the infrastructure as we move through it; shape it through the technologies we develop and how we apply them. What are we going to do with this? How do we deal with the acceleration of new windows into knowledge created by new Net technologies? How can we plan around this? Is there some stewardship? These are the overarching questions he poses and how he gets us there is a great read. These large questions remain before us but he has given us a new and exciting framework of approach.
Note: Weinberger is no giddy Web evangelist gushing forth platitudes--he is quick to say that he is optimistic but cautious about the future of our networked world: "We have lived through enough fundamental revolutions of thought to suspect that we don't happen to be living in the age that finally gets everything right."
1 comment:
Looks good on mobile but front page too large for max res on browsers--how to fix.
Post a Comment