The Pursuit of Knowledge, from Genesis to Google

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Mark Goldstein <markg () researchedge com>
Organization: International Research Center
Reply-To: <markg () researchedge com>
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 01:15:14 -0700
To: <dave () farber net>
Subject: The Pursuit of Knowledge, from Genesis to Google

For IP if you wish.
 
While my wife and I were traveling over the Christmas holiday in Paris, I
was reading the International Herald Tribune over breakfast each day. There
was an intriguing editorial on December 22 by Alberto Manguel titled ³The
pursuit of knowledge, from Genesis to Google² that I thought IP readers
might find of interest.
 
³The desire to know everything on earth and in heaven is so ancient that one
of the earliest accounts of this ambition is already a cautionary tale.²
Though I at first expected the author would begin with Genesis¹ telling of
Adam & Eve¹s eating of the tree of knowledge and being summarily ejected
from paradise, he instead leads with the Tower of Babel (Genesis Chapter 11)
and follows on to the Library of Alexandria. ³If Babel symbolized our
incommensurate ambition, the Library of Alexandria showed how this ambition
might be achieved² with its annotated catalogues and recommended reading
lists.
 
The author also focuses on the failure of Gustave Flaubert¹s comic heroes
Bouvard and Pecuchet to read everything on every branch of human endeavor
and cull and compile a universal encyclopedia, yielding several object
lesson for Google¹s current efforts at digitizing significant holdings from
some of the great libraries of the world, including a conservator¹s concern
for the fragility of electronic media storage. He concludes that ³The world
encyclopedia, the universal library, already exists and is the world
itself.²
 
The editorial may be found on the International Herald Tribune site at
http://iht.com/articles/2004/12/21/news/edmanguel.html, though it neglects
to conclude with the author¹s background given in the print edition.
(Alberto Manguel¹s latest book is ³A Reading Diary.² His study on the idea
of libraries, ³The Library at Night,² will be published next year.) And to
all a good night.
 
Best Regards,

Mark Goldstein

International Research Center

Voice & Fax: 602-470-0389

IRC: http://www.researchedge.com/

 

Harnessing Global Information Resources for Informed Decision Making

 


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