While reading the fifth, and latest, volume of Peter Ackroyd's splendid history of England, which deals with the Victorian age, I was struck by the extent to which the atmosphere of the late nineteenth-century nation, which Ackroyd captures so evocatively, mirrors our own troubled and anxious times. Whether or not the study of history allows… Continue reading Everything old is new again
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“For its own sake and for his own personal joy”: Leonardo’s unpublished notebooks
Leonardo da Vinci is known for many things, but being a case study of one style of information behaviour is not usually among them. However, among the many other aspects of his life covered in Walter Isaacson's best-selling biography, this emerges clearly, particularly from a consideration of his voluminous production of notes and lists, many… Continue reading “For its own sake and for his own personal joy”: Leonardo’s unpublished notebooks
Cosmoba
Located in Cosmo Place, between Southampton Row and Queen Square in Bloomsbury, the Cosmoba restaurant has been run by the same family for several decades. It serves a varied clientele of locals, tourists from the nearby hotels, visitors to the nearby British Museum, and academics from the University of London. It is not the sort… Continue reading Cosmoba
Byrhtferth’s diagram: microcosm and macrocosm
Among the many wonderful things on display at the recent Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms exhibition at the British Library was the intriguing image known as Byrhtferth's diagram. The version of the diagram on display was from the British Library's own manuscript collection (Harley MS3667). Although stunning, it is somewhat incomplete: St John's College, Oxford, has a slightly… Continue reading Byrhtferth’s diagram: microcosm and macrocosm
Physicist as librarian; Henri Poincaré’s intriguing metaphor
Among the new additions to Oxford University Press's admirable series of Very Short Introductions is a revised edition of J.L. Heilbron's VSI to the History of Physics. An interesting read in general, it raises one intriguing idea in particular; the metaphor of physicist as librarian. Libraries and documents feature throughout the book. Heilbron notes that… Continue reading Physicist as librarian; Henri Poincaré’s intriguing metaphor
Information education for onlife
I was fortunate enough to be able to visit the lovely city of Pisa earlier this month, to give a keynote talk at FEIS 2018, an international symposium on the future of education in information science. The symposium was part of the EINFOSE Erasmus+ project, which is examining the variation in entry requirements and learning… Continue reading Information education for onlife
Simpsons-in-the-Strand
Amid the churn and hype of the London restaurant scene, there are some places that qualify as Old London for their longevity as the same kind of restaurant on the same site. Among these, on the same spot since 1828, is Simpsons-in-the-Strand (yes, for the pedants among you, it's 'in', not 'on', the Strand). Aiming… Continue reading Simpsons-in-the-Strand
Supporting truth and promoting understanding: knowledge organization and the curation of the infosphere
This is an updated text of a keynote address given at the Fifteenth International ISKO Conference, Porto, 9th July 2018. A brief account of the conference is given in an earlier blog post. Supporting truth and promoting understanding: knowledge organization and the curation of the infosphere David Bawden and Lyn Robinson Abstract This paper considers… Continue reading Supporting truth and promoting understanding: knowledge organization and the curation of the infosphere
Knowledge Organization at Porto; ISKO 2018
The 15th International Conference of the International Society for Knowledge Organization took place in in the beautiful Portuguese city of Porto in July 2018. ISKO is the main academic association for those interested in classification, taxonomy, ontology and related topics, and as always attracted a good audience from around the world, though with an understandable… Continue reading Knowledge Organization at Porto; ISKO 2018
Can information be conserved, and why would it matter?
The idea that information may be conserved may strike many of us interested in recorded human information information as faintly ridiculous. By 'conserved', we mean that there is a fixed amount of information in the universe, and that, while it may be changed, it can neither be created nor destroyed. This does not seem to… Continue reading Can information be conserved, and why would it matter?
