3 ms·

The article is meant to be romantic but all I can think is how much better it would be if they digitally recorded the data. Take pictures of every page, OCR an

The article is meant to be romantic but all I can think is how much better it would be if they digitally recorded the data. Take pictures of every page, OCR and then index. Being able to find what you're looking for easily may not be as romantic but think how much better the research could be and what insight could be gained from having the information easily accessible.

ColanR 9y ago
what you said is true, but reminds me of one of the last paragraphs of the article. > Lannon said that Google had changed the way people sought information. “They only want information based on the information they think they want,” he said. As a rule, he said, archivists at the library should give you the box you’ve asked for — but also suggest another box. There are fewer opportunities, now, to stumble into a world you don’t already know. “It’s important to look outside of your own existence.”
- forapurpose 9y ago
  IIRC ... the Library of Congress Classification system, widely used by libraries to organize their books, is designed in part to facilitate serendipity: You find the book you expect, and you find unexpected related books and subjects nearby. I wonder if anyone has studied how online reference, including search engines and reference sources like Wikipedia, could be organized that way. Of course, these days some people think narrow-mindedness is a virtue.
  - nerdponx 9y ago
    Eh? Wikipedia and StackOverflow are practically black holes of serendipity. Not to mention Reddit, Hacker News, and other places where people genuinely do search for things.
    - ColanR 9y ago
      They are, but not in the same way. Look up "black hole" on wikipedia, you get serendipitous info on particles, spacetime, gravitation, etc. If you look it up in the Library of Congress, you get: "A stars, Asymptotic giant branch stars, B stars, Be stars, Black holes, Blue stragglers, Brightest stars, Brown dwarfs, Cool stars, Delta Scuti stars, Dwarf novae, Dwarf stars, and Early stars." I think the second set of results is a more useful serendipidy. https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/holdingsInfo?searchId=9410&recCount=25&recPointer=1&bibId=1196872 https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/holdingsInfo?searchId=9410&rec... https://www.loc.gov/aba/publications/FreeLCC/Q-outline.pdf https://www.loc.gov/aba/publications/FreeLCC/Q-outline.pdf

ColanR 9y ago

what you said is true, but reminds me of one of the last paragraphs of the article. > Lannon said that Google had changed the way people sought information. “They only want information based on the information they think they want,” he said. As a rule, he said, archivists at the library should give you the box you’ve asked for — but also suggest another box. There are fewer opportunities, now, to stumble into a world you don’t already know. “It’s important to look outside of your own existence.”

forapurpose 9y ago
IIRC ... the Library of Congress Classification system, widely used by libraries to organize their books, is designed in part to facilitate serendipity: You find the book you expect, and you find unexpected related books and subjects nearby. I wonder if anyone has studied how online reference, including search engines and reference sources like Wikipedia, could be organized that way. Of course, these days some people think narrow-mindedness is a virtue.
- nerdponx 9y ago
  Eh? Wikipedia and StackOverflow are practically black holes of serendipity. Not to mention Reddit, Hacker News, and other places where people genuinely do search for things.
  - ColanR 9y ago
    They are, but not in the same way. Look up "black hole" on wikipedia, you get serendipitous info on particles, spacetime, gravitation, etc. If you look it up in the Library of Congress, you get: "A stars, Asymptotic giant branch stars, B stars, Be stars, Black holes, Blue stragglers, Brightest stars, Brown dwarfs, Cool stars, Delta Scuti stars, Dwarf novae, Dwarf stars, and Early stars." I think the second set of results is a more useful serendipidy. https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/holdingsInfo?searchId=9410&recCount=25&recPointer=1&bibId=1196872 https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/holdingsInfo?searchId=9410&rec... https://www.loc.gov/aba/publications/FreeLCC/Q-outline.pdf https://www.loc.gov/aba/publications/FreeLCC/Q-outline.pdf