Dennis Duncan

A fun book, I probably would have preferred more history and less adventure: the author focuses on the droll, at the expense of the typical. It also seemed a wee bit teleological, something I've noticed in other books on older information technologies: an attempt to show that the World Wide Web represents continuity, not disruption, and that its impact on our reading is not disruptive so much as simply another development in a long series of changes. Which after all might be true, but it seems to me the jury is still out on that question.… (mere)

I wanted to love this book, but I only liked it.

Duncan begins at monasteries in the Middle Ages, and finishes at Google. He touches on all the different kinds of indexes -- concordance, subject, table of contents, more -- that have appeared over time. He tells some good stories and shares some amusing and instructive examples.

As befits a work with this title and topic, fully 40% of the book is end matter. There are two different indexes to compare -- one created by computer, using the best available current software, and one created by a human being. The human index is the hands-down winner.

I am a bibliophile and a tech nerd, so very much in the demographic for this book. I found it only interesting. I recommend it, but I wish I had loved it.… (mere)