Tuesday 23 October 2007

A Dewey Decimal

I listened today to a Radio 4 documentary about the Dewey Decimal system. It looked at the basic structure of the system and how it reflects the world view of its inventor Melville Dewey. It then contrasted this with the networked and more flexible approach of the Internet. On the whole it was a disappointing effort - not least because sections were linked together with a shushing sound and the noise of a date stamp! We are promised that the BBC cuts will result in fewer but better quality programmes. This sort of filler for the morning schedules will not be missed.

1 comment:

Mark Clowes said...

Carl, unfortunately I missed the documentary (will try and find it on Listen Again) but if you're interested in the tension between formal classification systems like Dewey and the new folksonomies of Web 2.0 I highly recommend you read David Weinberger's excellent book "Everything Is Miscellaneous - the power of the new digital disorder"