Here Comes Everybody and Everything is MIsc.

For one of my courses, we were asked to compare book reviews on two different books: Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky and Everything is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder by David Weinberger. Although I did not buy these two books, we were introduced to these books in a number of ways. We read book reviews and the course instructor included the main points of the books in her lecture.

I partially agree with the point in Shirky's book, that recently people organize themselves rather than organizations doing the organizing. I can see how it is easier to get together with people with a common interest using new technology but people have been getting together with others that have the same interest. Thus, I can’t agree that this is a new behavior but it is true that thanks to these tools, more people can come together to form larger powers and it is important for archivists to recognize the significance of online tools that are being used to bring people together.

I totally agree with the second point in Shirky's book, that with the current technology, especially Web 2.0 tools, about everyone that has access to these tools can play a part in the traditional roles in information cycle including publishing, creating, distributing, organizing, evaluating, and so on. The amount of information has long exceeded the amount that can be organized and evaluated just by library and information professionals. Thus, it totally makes sense for everyone to be contributing. While it seems obvious that having the “nonprofessionals” or the “lay people” participating in these activities will result in a complete chaos, something like Wikipedia shows that the works of nonprofessionals have not resulted in choas. (Despite some of its errors, it seems to be becoming a fairly reliable resource, and a very large resource too.)

For the book “Everything is Miscellaneous,” it seems like the main point of this book is that information does not need to be classified. It seems like he is saying if we impose a static classification and metadata onto the information, our biases and limitations of views get reflected on them, thus limiting discovery and use of the information in many ways. As this week's lecture discusses how the use of metadata increases the likelihood that a piece of information will get discovered and used, it was refreshing to read about how it can also hinder discovery and usage.

As the amount of information grows exponentially, we've already moved away from centrally trying to classify and to catalog information but I am not sure if it is wise to leave it upto the users. Will there be enough driving force from the information users to create tools to enable them to discover and locate relevant and specific information within a information world that is completely unorganized? How will Google evolve and will Semantic Web technologies provide some sort of solution? These are the questions that come to my mind.

Also, as the amount of information grows, how will information creators make sure that the information that they publish will get found and viewed over all the other competition? Will it be the information creators or the information users that will be the driving force to create some kind of solution to locating relevant or specific information in the chaos? This is another question... Only questions after questions arise as I am discussing these books.