Informatica by Alex Wright

Informatica by Alex Wright

Informatica—the updated edition of Alex Wright's previously published Glut—continues the journey through the history of the information age to show how information systems emerge. Today's "information explosion" may seem like a modern phenomenon, but we are not the first generation—or even the first species—to wrestle with the problem of information overload. Long before the advent of computers, human beings were collecting, storing, and organizing information: from Ice Age taxonomies to Sumerian archives, Greek libraries to Christian monasteries. Wright weaves a narrative that connects such seemingly far-flung topics as insect colonies, Stone Age jewelry, medieval monasteries, Renaissance encyclopedias, early computer networks, and the World Wide Web. He suggests that the future of the information age may lie deep in our cultural past. We stand at a precipice struggling to cope with a tsunami of data. Wright provides some much-needed historical perspective. We can understand the predicament of information overload not just as the result of technological change but as the latest chapter in an ancient story that we are only beginning to understand.

Alex Wright is a writer, designer, and researcher whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Salon, and elsewhere. He is the author of Cataloging the World.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781501768675
ISBN 10	1501768670
Title	Informatica
Author	Alex Wright
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Cornell University Press
Year published	2023-06-15
Number of pages	282
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable