About this item
The dream of capturing and organizing knowledge is as old as history. From the archives of ancient Sumeria and the Library of Alexandria to the Library of Congress and Wikipedia, humanity has wrestled with the problem of harnessing its intellectual output. The timeless quest for wisdom has been as much about information storage and retrieval as creative genius.In Cataloging the World, Alex Wright introduces us to a figure who stands out in the long line of thinkers and idealists who devoted themselves to the task. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, Paul Otlet, a librarian by training, worked at expanding the potential of the catalog card, the world's first information chip. From there followed universal libraries and museums, connecting his native Belgium to the world by means of a vast intellectual enterprise that attempted to organize and code everything ever published.
About the Author
Alex Wright is a professor of design history at the School of Visual Arts in New York and a contributor to The New York Times, Salon.com, The Believer, Harvard Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, and other publications. His first book, Glut: Mastering Information Through the Ages, was hailed by The Los Angeles Times as a "penetrating and highly insightful meditation on our information age and its historical roots."
