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The Pursuit of Knowledge, from Genesis to Google
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 09:17:08 -0500
------ 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 ------ End of Forwarded Message ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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- The Pursuit of Knowledge, from Genesis to Google David Farber (Jan 06)