Dear TiddlyWikian, you would know.
I looked a bit at your Adler. It is most addling–in a good way. I will read it now.
Best wishes, TT
LOL! I realized the US amazon site has more reviews for anyone who, like me, reads up a lot about a book before getting it.
By the way, the other day I ordered the book you recommend in this thread. Will be a nice read over Christmas. Thanks for recommendation.
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So, it is available for you brits on Amazon Kindle, but when I open the 'Murica amazon.com it says it’s a pre-order not available until mid-February…
They must be busy taking the u’s out of words like colour, and the s’ off of math.
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@DaveGifford, I thought it might interest you particularly because of the Biblical aspects. They have been incredibly important in the evolution of the modern index.
Just a comment
TT
Yes, maybe that is why I am so drawn to Tiddlywiki. The Bible benefits from being cross-indexed in quite a number of ways: by book and passage, by chronology, by topics, by literary features, by grammar, etc.
Update:
1 — The chapter on Page Numbering (3) is very interesting. Mainly because that on the normal net now it rarely exists. Yet pagination, arbitrary though it is, proved, historically, very useful. It is a downside on online. Yeah we have “pages” online, but they are not numbered.
2 — One thing the book avoids is discussion of Roget’s Thesaurus (RT), and similar approaches for indexing. RT type thinking is/was fundamental to AI; and where computer power has proved good quite a lot. In TW you see it crop up in aliasing tools. But the rationale is quite difficult to explain as RT itself probes the way meaning (aka the semantic) works.
[P.S. The fact that the word “alias” is difficult to find a clear uniform definition of is indicative of the issue in (2).]
Comments
TT
I hope you enjoy it as much as I am. It is not just informative in a useful way for us, it is written in a very good fun way too, imo.
Buona lettura durante il periodo natalizio mia caro.
TT
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Update: For users interested in the history of indexing—but not wanting to buy/read the book—here is a reasonable 1hr video overview of the main relevant points explained by the author …
TT
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I guess they don’t expect Muricans to read over Christmas? Not just the full flesh and blood book, but the ebook as well! On Audible, supposedly it used to be possible to temporarily change your address to something local to the country where a title was available, buy it with your account credits, download it, and then change your address back. Probably riskier with Amazon.
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That’s a nice cover. You can always judge a book by its cover. The other version looks like it was created by a publication bot or a mail room intern.
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Watched it and mentioned you in the comments!
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One of the good things in “Index, A History Of The” is the author’s appreciation of literary archetypes. Meaning, exploration of the wider expanses of indexology in literature …
Over Xmas 2021 these might be interesting …
Borges: The Library Of Babel. The universe being an infinite set of hexagonal rooms containing books written apparently at random—but somewhere there must be a sensible text. Life, the search for it.
Ballard: The Index. An index which is itself the story.
Nabakov: Pale Fire. The novel is a 999-line poem titled “Pale Fire”, written by the fictional poet John Shade, with a foreword, lengthy commentary and index written by Shade’s neighbor and academic colleague, Charles Kinbote. The broader point being that veracity is indexical. They grunt, indirectly, about how to establish that.
Christmas side comment
TT
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Finally got this in my Kindle tonight! Read through p 88, then went back and took notes to p 59, but it is time to go bed. Good stuff!
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I do think so. It is very precise in a human understandable way. I particularly thought his understanding of Christian concordances and their role in indexing particularly astute.
Just a comment
TT
Yay! Finished reading. What a great book. Lots to think about.
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When I saw the review in the NY Times Book Review today, a ready search yielded this discussion. “Surely the TiddlyWiki community needs to know about this” – a short-lived inspiration. I see it’s receiving the thoughtful consideration. May I raise the question: do e-books and TW diminish the need for the index? Thanks, … on to digest your thoughts.
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The author actually talks about that, that the search function in ebooks somewhat reduces the need for the index, but counters that there is something about a human-created index that has a life of its own, that searches are for words, but a good indexer indexes for ideas and concepts, even where the words don’t appear.
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Right. Absolutely. Language meaning can’t, often, quite often, be reduced to words. Humans intuit meaning. The book skilfully, I think, explains that indexical “X” factor needed that comes from a human (feeling) indexing brain working.
What is the upshot for TW? Well, IMO, TW is very well placed because it has an open approach at base: the limit of the currently technically possible. You can make most anything in it, any which way. That includes meaning elaboration.
TT