Legal Research

David Weinberger on ?Knowledge at the End of the Information Age?

By Ted Tjaden

I really enjoyed the lecture tonight by Dr. David Weinberger as part of the Bertha Bassam lecture at the University of Toronto’s i-school (Faculty of Information). The lecture was titled “Knowledge at the End of the Information Age.”

SLAW readers will know Weinberger as the author of Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder (2007), as discussed previously on SLAW ( ).

Weinberger continued his themes from Everything is Miscellaneous: By starting with the premise that the Internet is both extremely odd at the same as being quite familiar, he documented the transformation of information or knowledge from a top-down controlled product (e.g., a traditional print encyclopedia with a limited number of expert editors controlling the content) to the “messy” and “uncertain” nature of the Internet with its billions of connections and lack of central authority (e.g., Wikipedia). But the Internet and this messiness and uncertainty are by no means a bad thing since the “ecosystem” it represents fosters, for the most part, the types of conversations that we, as fallible people, have (where we agree and disagree but grow as a result of these conversations).

Alas, as I type this post, I realize I am tired and did not take notes so am not doing an adequate summary of the lecture. But that in part proves his point. By admitting my summary may not be perfect there is some transparency governing this post that provides context for the reader to evaluate the reliability of my summary. And since there were a number of SLAWyers and readers of SLAW at the lecture, they are free to comment on my post, add their thoughts or “corrections”, thereby creating a “conversation” that may lead to a better understanding.

Regardless, his commentary on politics was humorous . . . .

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on October 23, 2008 (boomark / email).