compassion, collaboration & cooperation iN transistion
The publishers of any printed book “worth its salt” - since Caxton & Guttenberg - have invariably been dependent on the indexer, indexing and/or INDEX for the success of the publication. My experience with Oxford University Press (OUP) confirmed that a decent book with a poor index can be incredibly irritating and conversely - on very rare occassions - the INDEX can become “the book”.
Conventions for indexing have always been important and dependent on the individual skill set & experience of the indexer - such that the indexing collective has arisen on a topsy turvy basis. A publisher such as OUP - with its experience of indexing the OED was obviously streets ahead of the competition in respect to collective skill-set and experience and they were able to transfer those capabilities to other areas of their business. It remains the case, however, that the OED still makes the lion's share of its working capital for OUP as a registered charity. As a charity - OUP were slow to look at the advent of computers - and as such many of their own indexing staff moved to the likes of Simon & Schuster and REED and have had significant influence on the evolution of indexing in parallel to the desk-top publishing revolution which Apple established. Standard Query Language (SQL) is just one aspect of same.
In the same way though that - Newspaper & subsequently book publishing has moved the What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) DTP way - so also, after almost two decades, is the whole industry about to move over to direct2print from electronic copy. Although Microsoft VISTA has the vestiges of its own indexing search technology - very much based on the functionality of Apple's own well established version - the advances which will be announced as part of the Leopard OS will be ground-breaking, set a NEW benchmark for ALL to follow and provide the optimum design solution for my own AlphaINDEX - providing the harbinger to a completely NEW concept of accessing data and information on a global basis and the INDEXing thereof from any iPhone on earth.
Having said all of this there are very few people who even want to be indexers and those that do have it in their blood - I would even go as far as saying that it is truly another art form. The only problem to be considered, however, is that artists can still paint in watercolours, oils & acrylic & not have to use computers to create their work - but we are rapidly moving towards a time when the ONLY indexing will be computer based and dependent on the software & hardware technology underpinning it.
Lest we forget NOT to kill the messenger -
Views: 200
Tags:
Add a Comment
© 2024 Created by Michael Grove. Powered by
martha said
Well, thing is, we're indexing in our minds first, aren't we? If we don't get the connection ourselves, we are not able to create it for other people to use. Or, to put it another way, if we haven't found something ourselves, or maybe we don't even know what it is (yet), then we can't help others find it. So that means, to me, that our task is to bring our treasures of matter and experience from the unconscious to the conscious. My brain is tiny, and I often refer to it that way, but few people know what I mean. They think the comment is a social gambit indicating modesty. And I've never felt the need to put this into words until now, but what I mean is that the intelligence of my heart surpasses the very average processing capacity of my head. And to overcome this, I've learned to reference things. Like, if I'm sitting and watching a quiz show, it's difficult for me to “remember” the answers to questions that I know I did know at one time. But, on the other hand, if I can evoke the right reference for the memory–an image, an odor, a touch, a mood, a color, a shadow, whatever it is–then the significance of that knowledge falls open for me. When I think of this, I feel/give great honor toward this knowledge, and also my heart is filled with gratitude.
Well, anyway, my point was that this referencing is unique, I suppose, to one's mind…
Michael said
Well, anyway, my point was that this referencing is unique, I suppose, to one's mind…
- IN the CONTEXT of our individual and collective connection with consciousness.
Michael said
Well, thing is, we're indexing in our minds first, aren't we? - ABSOLUTELY
So that means, to me, that our task is to bring our treasures of matter and experience from the unconscious to the conscious - EXACTLY
My brain is tiny … the intelligence of my heart surpasses the very average processing capacity of my head - PRECISELY -
only about 500MB/sec processing capacity - so the singular brain has to develop & evolve TOOLS for the MIND which allow the singular brain to interconnect & communicate with ALL the other 6.5 billion other singular brains in order that our treasures of matter and experience are accessible from the conscious ONE MIND
And to overcome this, I've learned to reference things -
IN the context, however, of - IP Law Versus Moore's Law against a background of
The Other Information Revolution
IF I can evoke the right reference for the memory–an image, an odor, a touch, a mood, a color, a shadow, whatever it is–then the significance of that knowledge falls open for me -
OUR own COGNITIVE ANALYSIS of the use of interactive, active-play LaserVision, in the early 1980s, concluded that the individual small brain had the capacity to reference, through the processes of the psychology of visual perception, 10,000 images in around 16 minutes at the rate of no more than 10 frames/sec & and to be able to subsequently recollect - juxtaposition, categorization & association - with image, odor, touch, mood, colour, shadow etc. - & furthermore percieve any image in any number of those ways according to the context and the MINDset at the moment the image was accessed again.
When I think of this, I feel/give great honor toward this knowledge, and also my heart is filled with gratitiude - AS IT SHOULD BE
REFERENCING is indeed unique to one's mind… BUT THE CHALLENGE is to make the REFERENCING unique to the ONE MIND of interconnected minds.
Michael said
KNOWLEDGE is the small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify.
Ambrose Bierce