Glut: Mastering Information through the Ages

by Alex Wright

What do primordial bacteria, medieval alchemists, and the World Wide Web have to do with each other? This fascinating exploration of how information systems emerge takes readers on a provocative journey through the history of the information age.

Today's "information explosion" may seem like an acutely modern phenomenon, but we are not the first generation--nor 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 Dark Age monasteries.

Today, we stand at a precipice, as our old systems struggle to cope with what designer Richard Saul Wurman called a "tsunami of data." With some historical perspective, however, we can begin to understand our predicament not just as the result of technological change, but as the latest chapter in an ancient story that we are only beginning to understand.

Spanning disciplines from evolutionary theory and cultural anthropology to the history of books, libraries, and computer science, writer and information architect Alex Wright weaves an intriguing 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. Finally, he pulls these threads together to reach a surprising conclusion, suggesting that the future of the information age may lie deep in our cultural past.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Science, Library Science, Technology, Information Science, Librarianship

296 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Alex Wright is a Brooklyn-based writer, researcher, and designer whose most recent book is Cataloging the World: Paul Otlet and the Birth of the Information Age. His first book Glut: Mastering Information Through the Ages, was hailed by the Los Angeles Times as "a penetrating and highly entertaining meditation on our information age and its historical roots."

Alex's writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Believer, Salon.com, The Wilson Quarterly, The Christian Science Monitor, and Harvard Magazine, among others.

Alex is a graduate faculty member at the School of Visual Arts' MFA program in Interaction Design. From 2009-2013, he was the Director of User Experience at The New York Times. He has also led research and design projects for Etsy, Yahoo!, Microsoft, IBM, The Long Now Foundation, Harvard University, the Internet Archive, and Yahoo!, among others. His work has won numerous industry awards, including a Webby, Cool Site of the Year, and an American Graphic Design Award.

Although painfully aware that the last thing the world needs is another bearded, bespectacled Brooklyn writer, Alex nonetheless chooses to live in Park Slope with his wife, two boys, and three banjos.

Reviews

[mcburton · Rating 4 out of 5]

The beginning of this book disappointed me, the author discusses the Mastering of Information starting from single celled organisms evolving genetic coping mechanisms for an increasing amount of information. He uses this starting point to stroll into an epigenetic rationale for human's predisposition for hierarchical solutions to information overload problems. I don't buy it. Alex is definitely not a biologist (I used to be if that amounts to anything) and his intellectual weakness is demonstrated in the earlier sections of the book. However you might explain it, Hierarchies Happen.
Fortunately more contemporary history is Alex's strength. The history of information is told as a battle between hierarchies and networks. From the beginnings of civilization to the war torn pages of the web, humankind has been yinning and yanging back and forth between the two overarching systems of information management. While its obviously a grossly simplified model, like left/right brain model of cognition, it is a useful metaphor for describing the history of information. This is a quick MUST read for any information addict.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is essential reading for librarians, information architects, and other meta-knowledge geeks, but most others could probably skip it. I liked best the chapters on classification systems and alternative networked-computing models, but any book that namechecks memory palaces and Borges is cool by me throughout.

[Gina Scioscia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful tour of the ways humans have sought to organize and impart knowledge and information. Wright tackles the disciplines of psychology, cultural anthropology and computer science, even illuminating by examples from evolutionary biology, how natural and necessary it is for us to sort, classify and categorize the world around us. He maintains that there is nothing new in the tension between hierarchical systems and social networks, and that this tension can be viewed as complementary rather than oppositional.
Wright's historical exploration showcases lesser known figures and their inventions in a fascinating manner. While David Weinberg's Everything is Miscellaneous captured more attention on a similar topic, Wright's book is much more thoughtful and interesting. Highly recommended.
—Gina, Reference

[Tiago · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible journey through the history of information technology

I’ve read a lot of books on info technology and knowledge management, and this is one of the absolute best. The further back in time he goes, the more insight and fascination Wright evokes, revealing that our relationship to information is as old as life itself. I can’t recommend this book enough for anyone seeking to understand how humans relate to and manage the information they have always been surrounded with.

[Vilmibm · Rating 5 out of 5]

read this goddamned book all of you

[Christophe · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don’t know what I was thinking when I picked this book off the shelf. Definitely not what I was expecting and certainly not my type of non fiction book, but unique. Some of the information was interesting to my taste, but other times about hierarchies, the industrial libraries, etc, were the parts I dreaded through. Recommended for readers who want to learn about the history of information transmissions.

[Theresa MacPhail · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a well-written text about a subject that is difficult, if not impossible, to tackle in one, short book. As an introduction to the history of information, I think it's wonderful. It's fodder for more reading and thought-provoking. As someone who is beginning to think about "information" from an anthropological sense, I found Wright's overview very helpful.

However, that being said, I can see how someone with more knowledge might be frustrated with the glossing of entire centuries of history and innovation here. But this isn't a book that promises to answer every question we have about "information overload" - it's a book that offers some avenues for looking at the problem from a genealogical perspective. The problems we have with information categorization, storage, and overload are anything but "new" - despite the fact that the technologies are.

[Mark Moon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I could have done entirely without the first few chapters, in which the author says stuff about biology & anthropology that is (variously) vague, misleading, or wrong. I found his subsequent ideas about ancient history rather vague as well, and hard to trust. Things get a little better when he moves on to medieval and modern history; the author is clearly more in his element as one progresses through the book. I learned a few interesting things about library catalogs, and about some of the ideas at the origin of the information explosion. Was particularly intrigued by Vannevar Bush's "As We May Think" and its legacy (which includes Doug Englebart's work that lead to the Mother Of All Demos in 1968).

[Jack Baty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, but I'm not sure why I needed to know 3/4 of it. My favorite bits were about Ted Nelson and hypertext.

I enjoy nicely designed book covers, although a poorly designed cover doesn't detract from a good book. That said, I really dislike Glut's cover.

[Yokusun Basi]

Glut: Mastering Information Through the Ages by Alex Wright (2007)

[Stuart Levy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very fascinating history of how current society has learned to deal with the "glut" of data and informaton.

[Srikanth · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are a few books that actually make you think and read them in a very active manner. This book is one such book. There are a lot of gaps in this book but still the subject and some questions it answers are actually quite profound.

Some questions that the book answers are as follows


How did different civilizations who were not connected develop language, folk knowledge and classifications.
Is information really that important a subject?
Where did it all start and how is it going as of now?
Is it easy being librarian and is it a science?
Before anything else what is this book all about? Apart from the questions that this book has answered and the title what exactly is this book all about? This book is about information, its history, evolution of information. How it was used and how it spread to create revolutions. The role it plays in our society etc.

Some interesting tit bits in this book.


Taxonomy or classification of plants and animals was also a very important part of survival of humans. e.g. snakes --> reptiles --> Poisonous etc We take it for granted
The web as we know it today has its origins from the early 20th century with a string of people who were involved till Tim Berners Lee actually operationalized it.
The Incas has Quipucamayu who used to handle a stringed object called a quipu which was used as a information device. This device was used to narrate complex stories and convey news. The image is shown above.
Vannevar Bush and his article "As we may think" that was published about 1944 was a very influential article which resulted in a lot threads of innovation and inventions. e.g. GUI, mouse etc
Apart from bible an earliest best seller book was the Bestiary which went through multiple prints.
One part of the book that i would like to highlight is the following

Vannevar Bush wrote an article As we may think ---> Influences ---> Douglas Engelbart/Ted Nelson -----> (Mouse/Human machine interaction/Hypertext and usability of computers---> Xerox PARC---> Steve Jobs---> Macintosh, GIU and mouse for consumers----> Tim Berners Lee ----> Internet so on and so forth.

Things i liked about the book

The pace is good even though the terminology used almost sounds like verbal diarrhea.
The concepts and the subject this book talks about is something that we all of us must have overlooked in our life and take it for granted. It does open your eyes on certain aspects.
The progress and evolution of information systems, classification and how important they are for overall development of civilization and mankind in general.
It also shows how little people know about India and how little research has been done. This for me is an oppurtunity.
Things that i really didnt like

The explanations provided in the book in some cases where of an extremely poor and complicated manner.
No mention of India, China. Euro centrism. Shows complete lack of knowledge and research.
Overall a book that is worth reading as it does give you an alternative perspective on things that we take for granted. Please read.

[Stephany Wilkes · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't think I can continue reading this because it frustrates me every few pages. Admittedly, I've only read the preface and part of the first chapter, but I can't believe how casually the author mentions, in that brief book span, that human characteristics like our drive to categorize and classify are "probably" epigenetic. This seems irresponsible and feels like cherry-picking data.

In the span of three dozen pages, the epigenome is never explained but is credited with carrying universal human tendencies and "the prevalence of certain narrative archetypes that recur across human cultures," to name just a couple of the things the epigenome theoretically does. Wright does point out that he is explaining E.O. Wilson's theory of gene-culture co-evolution, but (so far) he does not also explain what hard science has actually observed about the epigenome and the ways in which Wilson's theory does or does not overlap with observable epigenetic phenomena.

The epigenome is complex and, even in 2011 (much less when this book was written in 2007), poorly understood. Many studies have shown how the epigenome affects gene expression and it is thought to be more susceptible to environmental factors (like diet) than DNA itself. None of these studies are included in the Notes section, and it's unfortunate because they're fascinating. Wikipedia's Epigenome page fortunately has links to most of the big ones.

Now, is most of the book about epigenetics? I don't think so. But this casual, selective treatment of it makes me skeptical of the rest of the book.

[penny shima glanz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Glut started off with great promise discussing the history of classification and the rise of the written record, however it is perhaps a bit too ambitious for the 286 pages to fulfill the desires I had for it. I was looking for a balanced walk through the landscape from beads to scroll to scribe to today. I wanted to understand the technologies that lead to scroll and book and classification systems. There are areas where Wright did a detailed review of these, I found the chapter on "Illuminating the Dark Ages" one of the most complete, however, throughout I felt that there were large influential parts of information record that are either glossed over or ignored completely. This is most likely due to both this reviewer's biases and preferences and the authors and I do not think it should reflect poorly on him. I do like very much that the innovations brought forth by the book (over the scroll) are described as technological innovations.

[Wendy White · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book that utterly surprised me with its relevance to everything I am interested in. Cuts straight to the core of information sharing and how our recording and communicating devices have shaped our development from cave paintings to photo sharing websites.

I expected this book to mostly talk about modern information sharing, but it in fact pays an equal amount of attention to every era of human communication. I don't often get excited talking about history (unless we're talking mythology) and so I found myself glazing over a little as long, ancient names broke up the passages about monks and Babylonians.

However, I will re-read these chapters with fresh eyes now that I see where Wright was taking it all. This is a thorough look at information science, and the further you get in the book, the more fascinating it becomes.

I work in the field of information architecture, and this book have given me a whole new perspective (and inspiration) on the field.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting stuff - if you're an information geek, that is. Although the first couple chapters are pretty obtuse, I love the breadth and scope he tackles, and the way he shows networks and hierarchies intersecting and tangling through time (which is why you need to read the first 2 chapters). Once he gets through the philosophy and settles into history, his writing moves right along. Great food for thought for those of us trying to "un-silo" library data and technologies. His discussion of the orality of the, that a lot of it is more like a giant conversation than a giant library, made a lot of sense and helps me think about what we're working with and why we (maybe) don't need to worry so much about the transient and ephemeral. Though the Library of Congress is still archiving all tweets...

[Eugene Miya · Rating 4 out of 5]

I heard and saw Alex Wright's LongNow lecture (online) about the glut of data (I would not quite call it information).

The single most important thing/person this book exposes is Paul Otlet: who predated (his death) Bush's Memex (Atlantic article) by over a decade) with ideas which almost perfectly mimic Memex.

I recently, in advising another author, had Otlet mentioned back to me. And that refreshed my memory of this event.

The historic illustrations make this a better than average book about data and information but it keeps technical mathematical details to minimum.

Finish date is a rough idea from about the time of Wright's presentation (I rushed out to order the book the day following).

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Glut started as a very interesting read looking the history or memory and how peoples brains appeared wired for particular hierarchical structures. The continued discussion into classification schemes and the difficulties associated with them was very interesting. For me the 20th century and beyond period was very light on and while it promised to explore what might be possible with new thinking and technology in terms of dealing with information overload it did not deliver. This area of the book was more a potted history of some of the developments in IT relating to information. It was both too superficial and also arbitrary.

[Devin Bruce · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's certainly an uneven book, at least in my experience: the looks at information technology in the preliterate age and the growth and development of the book and the library were fascinating and easy to navigate, but when the topic became more about networked information and computers I was struggling to get through the jargon. But it's a very well-organized and interesting look at how humans develop technology and technology guides humanity, and for that it earns a decent rating. However: I have to wonder about a book on information technology that refers to an appendix that doesn't exist in the book.

[Zdravko · Rating 4 out of 5]

a pretty accessible history of information management. wright discusses the dialectic between hierarchies and networks as the fundamental principle which has given rise to information architectures over the ages: from preliterate societies who embody their knowledge in their physical and social arrangements, to our world wide web.

if a few years ago someone told me that i would enjoy a book chapter on universal decimal classification, i wouldn't have believed it. yet, it would have been true.

i just wish he didn't use 'reverberate' a couple of dozen times. i take a half a star off for that.

[Enrico · Rating 5 out of 5]

Libro bellissimo che analizza l'evoluzione dei modi in cui l'uomo, dalla preistoria ad oggi, ha affrontato il concetto di "informazione", dai quipu al web, passando per la biblioteca d'Alessandria e la CDD. Originale ma efficace la scelta di adoperare trasversalmente termini e concetti moderni per i fenomeni antichi: social network, interfaccia, ipertesto, ecc.

Ogni tanto appaiono qualche lacuna o qualche superficialità che, a causa della mia ignoranza, non so come interpretare: per esempio, perché D'Alembert non è nemmeno nominato quando si parla dell'Encyclopedie?

[Blur · Rating 2 out of 5]

Terrible, simplified, uninspiring. The author wants to avoid future-technology over enthusiasm, and in stead falls for one-idé-explains-all romanticism and over interprets the explaining power of evolutionary psychology, which is just as naive.

For popular reading on categorization an organization of information from an evolutionary perspective, I suggest going for the mind/conciousnesses literature, something like the Ravenous Brain perhaps. However, Glut is an extremely fast read, ok as a reference list as long as one takes the rhetoric and speculations with a huge heap of salt.

[Caleb · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like historical surveys of information theory, consumption, display, transmission...This is one of those. I'm enjoying the depth of the anecdotes from the past - illiterate Irish monks illuminating sacred works, the great library of Alexandria, etc. - but I wish the book had been edited more rigorously. Because I work as an information architect, I appreciate the parallels to the "career" of scribes.

[.keli. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book gives an interesting history not only of libraries and how they came to be as they are today (starting with the libraries of the Hittites), and how many were built to amazing proportions only to be destroyed when their societies fell, but also of language, alphabets, printing and publishing.

Granted, I probably wouldn't have picked it up were it not assigned in one of my classes, but I really did enjoy it.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

The beginning is the weakest part of this book. Once you make it pass the first couple of chapters or so, the book does get better. It is a fair introduction of the beginning of information systems. Too much of what Wright says however, comes off too casual (more journalistic than educated or academic). I would recommend this book as an introduction and jumping off point to other more informed sources.

[Douglas Summers-Stay · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a history of systems of classification, beginning with magical and folk traditions, going through medieval, Renaissance and early modern systems, and ending with a discussion of the web. It's not the sort of thing a lot of people would find fascinating, but it really fit my interests. One detail I found interesting was the influence of Celtic scribe monks on the history of the way we write-- and why we associate Gothic writing with Germany and with everything old.

[Corey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anything James Burke says he wishes he wrote is worth checking out in my opinion.

A history of library sciences, but also of how we organize information generally- not just cultural history, but in our basic brain structure, cross-culturally. How information has been found, lost and given lesser or greater significance during the centuries.

Fascinating.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to read this for a class and really enjoyed it. It kept getting better and better, and the last chapter really ties it all together. This is basically a history of the world centered around technology and human progress. I learned a lot, and have recently discovered that the information gleaned makes for interesting conversation starters with near strangers.

[Jesse · Rating 3 out of 5]

This guide through the history of information systems is very readable. Depending on your field of expertise, you might find that much of the content is introductory. Wright does, however, manage to successfully communicate at least some novel concepts in the synthesis of topics covered within his historical study.

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book packed an incredible amount of information into 240 pages--the whole history of how humans have tried to organize information. It was slow going at times, but I might have learned more from it than from any other 240 pages I've read. If you're in to the history of books/information, it's great.