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A Place For Everything: The Curious History of Alphabetical Order
In A Place for Everything, historian Judith Flanders draws our attention to both the neglected ubiquity of the alphabet and the long, complex history of its rise to prominence. For, while the order of the alphabet itself became fixed very soon after letters were first invented, their ability to sort and store and organize proved far less obvious.
To many of our forebears, the idea of of organising things by the random chance of the alphabet rather than by established systems of hierarchy or typology lay somewhere between unthinkable and disrespectful. The author fascinatingly lays out the gradual triumph of alphabetical order, from its possible earliest days as a sorting tool in the Great Library of Alexandria in the third century BCE, to its current decline in prominence in our digital age of Wikipedia and Google.
To many of our forebears, the idea of of organising things by the random chance of the alphabet rather than by established systems of hierarchy or typology lay somewhere between unthinkable and disrespectful. The author fascinatingly lays out the gradual triumph of alphabetical order, from its possible earliest days as a sorting tool in the Great Library of Alexandria in the third century BCE, to its current decline in prominence in our digital age of Wikipedia and Google.
412 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 6, 2020
229 people are currently reading
5136 people want to read
About the author
Judith Flanders
33 books537 followersJudith Flanders was born in London, England, in 1959. She moved to Montreal, Canada, when she was two, and spent her childhood there, apart from a year in Israel in 1972, where she signally failed to master Hebrew.
After university, Judith returned to London and began working as an editor for various publishing houses. After this 17-year misstep, she began to write and in 2001 her first book, A Circle of Sisters, the biography of four Victorian sisters, was published to great acclaim, and nominated for the Guardian First Book Award. In 2003, The Victorian House (2004 in the USA, as Inside the Victorian Home) received widespread praise, and was shortlisted for the British Book Awards History Book of the Year. In 2006 Consuming Passions, was published. Her most recent book, The Invention of Murder, was published in 2011.
Judith also contributes articles, features and reviews for a number of newspapers and magazines.
After university, Judith returned to London and began working as an editor for various publishing houses. After this 17-year misstep, she began to write and in 2001 her first book, A Circle of Sisters, the biography of four Victorian sisters, was published to great acclaim, and nominated for the Guardian First Book Award. In 2003, The Victorian House (2004 in the USA, as Inside the Victorian Home) received widespread praise, and was shortlisted for the British Book Awards History Book of the Year. In 2006 Consuming Passions, was published. Her most recent book, The Invention of Murder, was published in 2011.
Judith also contributes articles, features and reviews for a number of newspapers and magazines.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 212 reviews
September 14, 2020
An astonishing amount of research has gone into this book and it’s an exhaustive – and unfortunately rather exhausting -exploration of how we learnt to order and classify things, and how although alphabetical order seems so intuitive to us now, something we just take for granted, it wasn’t always thus. As a librarian, order and classification are dear to my heart and I enjoyed much of this book. But there is so much of it to enjoy and after a while I began to feel a bit shell-shocked by all the information I was trying to process. I’m not sure how the author could have made the book any more digestible, but I rather wish she had.
August 1, 2020
The latest shibboleth of western imperialism to come under the magnifying glass is the alphabet. We in the West think of it as standard and intuitive, its powers innate, and its services universal. Judith Flanders is here to remind us it has a long tortured history to get to this hallowed status. And by the way, there are all kinds of societies that don’t use our alphabet. In A Place for Everything, she has done her usual yeoman’s job of research, and produced a book that probes in all kinds of directions for fascinating developments, accomplishments, and trivia. It’s another gem from the author of Inside The Victorian Home, a highly appreciated and exhaustive feat, examining life for the emerging middle class in the 1800s. This one reaches even farther.
In the beginning, there was no need for alphabetizing anything, or even for an alphabet. There was not much knowledge to impart, no overwhelming commerce to track, no need for government processes. As time went on and history stacked up, oral stories became too big to handle. No one could carry everything just in their heads.
Different societies dealt with it in different ways. Writing developed, but mostly just in religious quarters, where the stories and their interpretations were the lifeblood. Most of the book seems to dwell on monks and priests, as they made all the discoveries and innovations. They formed the vast majority of those who could even read at all until 500 years ago. Even the scientists were monks and ministers.
Knowledge grew to the point where it needed to be classified in order to be retrievable. Everyone had their own ideas of how to achieve this. For example, the Book of Interpretation of Hebrew Names listed them in the order they appeared in the bible. Concordances, attempts to index everything in the bible for faster research, were a major source for innovations, through trial and error and fashion.
Should a phrase be tagged by its first word (I, The, An, One -for example) or by the central noun or verb? For a very long time, things were classified by their category in a hierarchy, from the top down. Books were written with heavenly hierarchy as their organizing spine. It always began with God, followed by angels, the king, lords, patrons, and so on down the line. Finding what you actually came for was, shall we say, challenging.
In his The Analytical Language of John Wilkins (a 17th century writer), Jorge Luis Borges cited a (probably imaginary)Chinese encyclopedia which classified all animals in the following categories: “a) those that belong to the Emperor, b) embalmed ones, c) those that are trained, d) suckling pigs, e) mermaids, f) fabulous ones, g) stray dogs, h) those that are included in this classification, i) those that tremble as if they were mad, j) innumerable ones, k) those drawn with a very fine camel’s hair brush, l) others, m) those that have just broken a flower vase, n) those that resemble flies from a distance.” Absurd, but very close to the truth, as Flanders repeatedly discovered in her research. Consistency, let alone science, had yet to leave their marks.
As alphabets developed, some writers used them as their basis of organization, but it was centuries before it became common and acceptable, let alone mandatory. For one thing, the lack of people able to read or write meant that spelling was up to the writer. There were no rules to follow, and the variations made looking for a fact all the more difficult. It was always a case of what made the most sense – to the writer. If you didn’t think the way he did, you were out of luck and in for a hard slog.
Things picked up in the 11th and 12th centuries. Movable type first appeared in Europe in the 11th century. (It had been used China since the 200s.) 1180 was the first time the bible was broken into chapters.
Libraries of a sort began to appear. Religious orders could (if allowed) accumulate books, maybe dozens. They were kept in cupboards. You found them by determining which cupboard they were assigned. When they no longer fit in cupboards, they populated shelves. They would be identified by some more-or-less permanent marker, like a bust of someone on the end of the shelf. For centuries, this was the system the English used everywhere. Deeds were written up referencing a certain oak tree, for example. As English oaks could live for thousands of years, this was actually decent thinking, as long as no one cut it down.
By the 14th century, paper was cheaper than parchment, which led to books of blank sheets that people wrote in themselves. For a long time, printed documents were restricted to a small area of the page, so that others could comment, criticize, attempt to classify, and add their own knowledge to the text. Right beside it.
During the century, the price of paper dropped 75% as the new technology spread and volume production flooded the market. This had the unfortunate result we call paperwork. Government suddenly was done by document rather than command. Forms came into existence, bureaucrats came into being, and the need to make sense of all the paper became everyone’s problem. Knowledge became so voluminous that everything written cried out to be indexed. This led to inventions like desks, filing cabinets, copy systems, index cards and files, none of which was even imaginable before.
Wax-covered tablets became the mobiles of their day. People could carve out notes on them, close them to protect the writing, and erase them when they had dealt with the matter. Book presses allowed copies to be made by squeezing the page and the book so hard the ink bled onto a flimsy sheet placed over it. And even without these advances, copies had to be made of all outbound correspondence, as proof in case of dispute.
Alphabetizing itself evolved in fits and starts. The inconsistencies of spelling held it back, but it also took a while for writers to go to the second level, to alphabetize by the first two letters (let alone three or four) of the first word or the topic word. School grades started a migration to the alphabet only in the mid 1800s, with an F for Failure replacing E (confusable with Excellent) only decades later. Now of course, everything is alphabetized, from seating sections to debt ratings. AAA automatically implies excellence. ABC automatically means a high placement on the list.
And yet, the whole system is completely arbitrary. A does not have to be the first letter of the alphabet, any more than QWERTY is the natural order. And many were (and probably continue to be) against it. Author Samuel Taylor Coleridge “stormed” against alphabetizing everything. He was a “vehement opponent”, calling it “nothing more than a huge unconnected miscellany…in an arrangement determined by the accident of initial letters.”
Back in the cultural dilemma, it is true that many Middle Eastern alphabets begin with A, be it aleph or alpha or something similar. But then they diverge right away. The hubris of our alphabet was brought into focus during the Olympics, a global event, where countries parade in and out of the main stadium in alphabetical order. This came to a screeching halt when Korea hosted them, soon followed by China. Their specified orders confused the hell out of television hosts, never knowing who was next, and fearing their own country would be called to enter during a commercial break. Flanders has noted it all.
Even the origins of words has been transformed by the advent of alphabetizing everything. Just one example from the book is the word “file”, which did not exist before in this meaning. The word comes from the Latin for thread or string. Think filament. The modern usage comes from the practice of punching a hole in pieces of paper and threading string or even just thread through them to keep them together in one place. They could then be hung on the wall, since filing cabinets were still hundreds of years off in the future, but nails were readily available. As you read A Place for Everything, you will notice all kinds of familiar words and names that have shaped this new era and this new obsession with organizing everything.
And let there be no doubt on that score. We not only catalog all the books in libraries (though Flanders says investigations have shown 10% miss out are therefore never accessed), but even libraries themselves are catalogued. WorldCat has collected and massaged the data of 72,000 libraries around the world. This is obviously way beyond the capability of the index card. It created the need for databases, where files are just icons and all the data is in one huge memory drive, instantly and infinitel searchable. We have come full circle, where any data can be retrieved, and nothing has to be separated out except by our desire for it. But perhaps fortunately, Flanders doesn’t go there.
Unusually, the book has not one but two systems of endnotes, at the end of every chapter as well at the back of the book. This keeps the reader bouncing. The chapter ones are more like margin notes, with trivia or impact that doesn’t really belong in the paragraph. The back of the book notes are the more standard citations and references. Same goes for images; there are two collections. Twenty-one images are scattered throughout, but there is also a collection of 11 images in an insert. It’s a very busy book.
And for all that, the book is arranged chronologically.
David Wineberg
In the beginning, there was no need for alphabetizing anything, or even for an alphabet. There was not much knowledge to impart, no overwhelming commerce to track, no need for government processes. As time went on and history stacked up, oral stories became too big to handle. No one could carry everything just in their heads.
Different societies dealt with it in different ways. Writing developed, but mostly just in religious quarters, where the stories and their interpretations were the lifeblood. Most of the book seems to dwell on monks and priests, as they made all the discoveries and innovations. They formed the vast majority of those who could even read at all until 500 years ago. Even the scientists were monks and ministers.
Knowledge grew to the point where it needed to be classified in order to be retrievable. Everyone had their own ideas of how to achieve this. For example, the Book of Interpretation of Hebrew Names listed them in the order they appeared in the bible. Concordances, attempts to index everything in the bible for faster research, were a major source for innovations, through trial and error and fashion.
Should a phrase be tagged by its first word (I, The, An, One -for example) or by the central noun or verb? For a very long time, things were classified by their category in a hierarchy, from the top down. Books were written with heavenly hierarchy as their organizing spine. It always began with God, followed by angels, the king, lords, patrons, and so on down the line. Finding what you actually came for was, shall we say, challenging.
In his The Analytical Language of John Wilkins (a 17th century writer), Jorge Luis Borges cited a (probably imaginary)Chinese encyclopedia which classified all animals in the following categories: “a) those that belong to the Emperor, b) embalmed ones, c) those that are trained, d) suckling pigs, e) mermaids, f) fabulous ones, g) stray dogs, h) those that are included in this classification, i) those that tremble as if they were mad, j) innumerable ones, k) those drawn with a very fine camel’s hair brush, l) others, m) those that have just broken a flower vase, n) those that resemble flies from a distance.” Absurd, but very close to the truth, as Flanders repeatedly discovered in her research. Consistency, let alone science, had yet to leave their marks.
As alphabets developed, some writers used them as their basis of organization, but it was centuries before it became common and acceptable, let alone mandatory. For one thing, the lack of people able to read or write meant that spelling was up to the writer. There were no rules to follow, and the variations made looking for a fact all the more difficult. It was always a case of what made the most sense – to the writer. If you didn’t think the way he did, you were out of luck and in for a hard slog.
Things picked up in the 11th and 12th centuries. Movable type first appeared in Europe in the 11th century. (It had been used China since the 200s.) 1180 was the first time the bible was broken into chapters.
Libraries of a sort began to appear. Religious orders could (if allowed) accumulate books, maybe dozens. They were kept in cupboards. You found them by determining which cupboard they were assigned. When they no longer fit in cupboards, they populated shelves. They would be identified by some more-or-less permanent marker, like a bust of someone on the end of the shelf. For centuries, this was the system the English used everywhere. Deeds were written up referencing a certain oak tree, for example. As English oaks could live for thousands of years, this was actually decent thinking, as long as no one cut it down.
By the 14th century, paper was cheaper than parchment, which led to books of blank sheets that people wrote in themselves. For a long time, printed documents were restricted to a small area of the page, so that others could comment, criticize, attempt to classify, and add their own knowledge to the text. Right beside it.
During the century, the price of paper dropped 75% as the new technology spread and volume production flooded the market. This had the unfortunate result we call paperwork. Government suddenly was done by document rather than command. Forms came into existence, bureaucrats came into being, and the need to make sense of all the paper became everyone’s problem. Knowledge became so voluminous that everything written cried out to be indexed. This led to inventions like desks, filing cabinets, copy systems, index cards and files, none of which was even imaginable before.
Wax-covered tablets became the mobiles of their day. People could carve out notes on them, close them to protect the writing, and erase them when they had dealt with the matter. Book presses allowed copies to be made by squeezing the page and the book so hard the ink bled onto a flimsy sheet placed over it. And even without these advances, copies had to be made of all outbound correspondence, as proof in case of dispute.
Alphabetizing itself evolved in fits and starts. The inconsistencies of spelling held it back, but it also took a while for writers to go to the second level, to alphabetize by the first two letters (let alone three or four) of the first word or the topic word. School grades started a migration to the alphabet only in the mid 1800s, with an F for Failure replacing E (confusable with Excellent) only decades later. Now of course, everything is alphabetized, from seating sections to debt ratings. AAA automatically implies excellence. ABC automatically means a high placement on the list.
And yet, the whole system is completely arbitrary. A does not have to be the first letter of the alphabet, any more than QWERTY is the natural order. And many were (and probably continue to be) against it. Author Samuel Taylor Coleridge “stormed” against alphabetizing everything. He was a “vehement opponent”, calling it “nothing more than a huge unconnected miscellany…in an arrangement determined by the accident of initial letters.”
Back in the cultural dilemma, it is true that many Middle Eastern alphabets begin with A, be it aleph or alpha or something similar. But then they diverge right away. The hubris of our alphabet was brought into focus during the Olympics, a global event, where countries parade in and out of the main stadium in alphabetical order. This came to a screeching halt when Korea hosted them, soon followed by China. Their specified orders confused the hell out of television hosts, never knowing who was next, and fearing their own country would be called to enter during a commercial break. Flanders has noted it all.
Even the origins of words has been transformed by the advent of alphabetizing everything. Just one example from the book is the word “file”, which did not exist before in this meaning. The word comes from the Latin for thread or string. Think filament. The modern usage comes from the practice of punching a hole in pieces of paper and threading string or even just thread through them to keep them together in one place. They could then be hung on the wall, since filing cabinets were still hundreds of years off in the future, but nails were readily available. As you read A Place for Everything, you will notice all kinds of familiar words and names that have shaped this new era and this new obsession with organizing everything.
And let there be no doubt on that score. We not only catalog all the books in libraries (though Flanders says investigations have shown 10% miss out are therefore never accessed), but even libraries themselves are catalogued. WorldCat has collected and massaged the data of 72,000 libraries around the world. This is obviously way beyond the capability of the index card. It created the need for databases, where files are just icons and all the data is in one huge memory drive, instantly and infinitel searchable. We have come full circle, where any data can be retrieved, and nothing has to be separated out except by our desire for it. But perhaps fortunately, Flanders doesn’t go there.
Unusually, the book has not one but two systems of endnotes, at the end of every chapter as well at the back of the book. This keeps the reader bouncing. The chapter ones are more like margin notes, with trivia or impact that doesn’t really belong in the paragraph. The back of the book notes are the more standard citations and references. Same goes for images; there are two collections. Twenty-one images are scattered throughout, but there is also a collection of 11 images in an insert. It’s a very busy book.
And for all that, the book is arranged chronologically.
David Wineberg
Read
January 3, 2021The history of alphabetical order, which is so pervasive in the Western world now that it's surprising how long it took to become dominant, or how disturbing it was as a concept--its rise tied to the decline of religion as well as the expansion of print. We also forget how hard it (or any order) was to achieve in the days before sort functions.
October 19, 2020
In probably the most boring thing I've ever done, I've now read a whole book on the history of alphabetical order. Except I don't think it's boring. The rest of the world may, but I think it's fascinating. I love organising things - particularly data. I work in a museum archive. My Goodreads shelves are a thing of genius. I create spreadsheets for fun and used to make Powerpoint presentations on my favourite animals and places I wanted to visit as a kid. So when I say this book was written exclusively for me, I say it with very little exaggeration.
The research in this book is a thing of beauty. In fact, it's so beautiful, it's a bit unapproachable, like a museum artifact behind plexiglass. By far the most interesting, and the most accessible, chapters are the first few, as well as the last one. The rest in between can be a bit slow at times, and even I had droopy eyelids during 'F is for Firsts'. This isn't really the author's fault, however, but rather a lull in history in the progression of how people chose to organise their own book collections. There are still bits in those chapters that are interesting, largely revolving around the fact that standardization didn't even exist as a concept, and every single person and their institution had their own order in which they thought things to be most important. The first few chapters, the ones I think the general public, and not keener historians like me, would find the most interest in, talk a lot about why alphabetisation didn't even have a need to exist, because information didn't need to be ordered. As in, there was so little of it that people just simply memorised it. The Benedictine monks were expected to know each and every book in their library, where it was located, and what information was in it. Why does an index need to exist when you already know where everything is? I also thought it was really interesting to learn that alphabetisation was considered a subpar, blasphemous way of suggesting that one was simply too stupid to organise things any other way. Throughout my history degree I tended to lean towards learning about how religion (particularly Christianity) had shaped and formed the world as it developed, and the same goes for the organisation of information and how to access it. Hierarchical systems were paramount, with everything related to God coming first, and then slowly down the pecking order things were placed in relation. Deus was always listed before angel, despite D coming later in the alphabet than A, because God was above all things. The alphabet did exist of course, and did in fact have a specific order, but was not used as a method of ordering things and the idea that it could be the most useful was out of the question. The only places that had enough material to even need organising were monasteries or other religious institutions, and of course they would use the hierarchical system with God as the highest.
Anyone who has a knack for it or takes pleasure in organising and making things as efficient as possible will appreciate this book. However as I mentioned, it does get into nitty gritty detail, and let’s face it, everything with a history will inevitably have slow points. But I think it does prove to be incredibly interesting, and even if you didn’t have any interest at all, I’m sure you would be fascinated (or at least humoured) to know how begrudgingly stubborn humans have remained throughout history. As a species, we just do not like change. Even when it comes to the alphabet, something we all take for granted. We also don’t realise how even alphabetical order, something that is the most neutral way of organising things, still isn’t completely unbiased. What about all those languages that don’t use the Roman alphabet or use other non-alphabetic writing forms? They are forced to adapt and mold their cultures, much older and lengthy than most of ours, which hardly seems fair.
I have a lot more passages and paragraphs highlighted that I would love to share, but I am aware that not nearly as many people as I’d like would find that as interesting as I do. I’m in enough danger in turning this into a term paper as it is. In summary, if you find this topic interesting but not quite interesting enough to read how specific people ordered their books in the 15th century, definitely skim the first few chapters as well as the last one, which jumps to the 21st century and our own modern ways of organisation (and the subsequent downgrade of alphabetic order as even really that necessary when information can be received nearly instantly rather than having to search for it). For the rest of us nerds who crave this kind of order, this is exactly what we wanted. You’re welcome.
I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
The research in this book is a thing of beauty. In fact, it's so beautiful, it's a bit unapproachable, like a museum artifact behind plexiglass. By far the most interesting, and the most accessible, chapters are the first few, as well as the last one. The rest in between can be a bit slow at times, and even I had droopy eyelids during 'F is for Firsts'. This isn't really the author's fault, however, but rather a lull in history in the progression of how people chose to organise their own book collections. There are still bits in those chapters that are interesting, largely revolving around the fact that standardization didn't even exist as a concept, and every single person and their institution had their own order in which they thought things to be most important. The first few chapters, the ones I think the general public, and not keener historians like me, would find the most interest in, talk a lot about why alphabetisation didn't even have a need to exist, because information didn't need to be ordered. As in, there was so little of it that people just simply memorised it. The Benedictine monks were expected to know each and every book in their library, where it was located, and what information was in it. Why does an index need to exist when you already know where everything is? I also thought it was really interesting to learn that alphabetisation was considered a subpar, blasphemous way of suggesting that one was simply too stupid to organise things any other way. Throughout my history degree I tended to lean towards learning about how religion (particularly Christianity) had shaped and formed the world as it developed, and the same goes for the organisation of information and how to access it. Hierarchical systems were paramount, with everything related to God coming first, and then slowly down the pecking order things were placed in relation. Deus was always listed before angel, despite D coming later in the alphabet than A, because God was above all things. The alphabet did exist of course, and did in fact have a specific order, but was not used as a method of ordering things and the idea that it could be the most useful was out of the question. The only places that had enough material to even need organising were monasteries or other religious institutions, and of course they would use the hierarchical system with God as the highest.
Anyone who has a knack for it or takes pleasure in organising and making things as efficient as possible will appreciate this book. However as I mentioned, it does get into nitty gritty detail, and let’s face it, everything with a history will inevitably have slow points. But I think it does prove to be incredibly interesting, and even if you didn’t have any interest at all, I’m sure you would be fascinated (or at least humoured) to know how begrudgingly stubborn humans have remained throughout history. As a species, we just do not like change. Even when it comes to the alphabet, something we all take for granted. We also don’t realise how even alphabetical order, something that is the most neutral way of organising things, still isn’t completely unbiased. What about all those languages that don’t use the Roman alphabet or use other non-alphabetic writing forms? They are forced to adapt and mold their cultures, much older and lengthy than most of ours, which hardly seems fair.
I have a lot more passages and paragraphs highlighted that I would love to share, but I am aware that not nearly as many people as I’d like would find that as interesting as I do. I’m in enough danger in turning this into a term paper as it is. In summary, if you find this topic interesting but not quite interesting enough to read how specific people ordered their books in the 15th century, definitely skim the first few chapters as well as the last one, which jumps to the 21st century and our own modern ways of organisation (and the subsequent downgrade of alphabetic order as even really that necessary when information can be received nearly instantly rather than having to search for it). For the rest of us nerds who crave this kind of order, this is exactly what we wanted. You’re welcome.
I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
January 23, 2021
This book felt like an extension of my library & information science courses, covering cataloging and classification schemes, the history of books and media, subject headings, and information organization.
I found this book to be a little dry — "duh, Shelby," you cry. "It's a book about alphabetization!" I am fascinated by classification, but I am less interested in medieval Western history and ancient manuscripts, which the bulk of this book is about.
Nonetheless, this is a charming book and would make a great gift for the librarian or English professional in your life. (I asked for and received a copy for Christmas!)
I found this book to be a little dry — "duh, Shelby," you cry. "It's a book about alphabetization!" I am fascinated by classification, but I am less interested in medieval Western history and ancient manuscripts, which the bulk of this book is about.
Nonetheless, this is a charming book and would make a great gift for the librarian or English professional in your life. (I asked for and received a copy for Christmas!)
December 14, 2020
A Place for Everything: The Curious History of Alphabetical Order, Judith Flanders, is a fascinating book on the development of sorting systems for books and information. Sound boring? Well, it kind of is in some ways. This is very niche history here. Even so, it is fascinating to read about the ingenious methods humans have developed to record, read, research and sort information, and all the more so when realizing how much we take it for granted today. Alphabetical order is a fairly novel concept - although it has been around for centuries, it was never considered an important way to sort information. In antiquity, there were just too few books for this to be a useful method of sorting. Usually hierarchy and geography, as well as subject, were the main sorting methods. In Middle Ages Europe, for example, you would never place a book before the bible when sorting - this would be unthinkable! It was left to the Renaissance period, when libraries and book collections started to grow, classical literature began to be translated, and literacy rates increase, that alphabetization methods began to take shape. First, second, third and finally full alphabetization were all trialed, but it is interesting to note that these systems were either accompaniments to other forms of sorting, or needed to be explained in some depth by the author or compiler in lengthy explanatory statements. As we move into the 17th century and beyond, information sorting began to increase in importance due to the increase in need from governments and bureaucracies. Sorting for tax records, lists of research materials, inventories of goods, and so on all became important pieces of information as trade, governance and global integration increased. Alphabetization became an important tool to sort names, items, categories and so forth, although still these categories were often sorted by hierarchy or geographic area, for example. Census data touched on racial bias, sorting categories by perceived hierarchy. These lists showed the racist and sexist underpinnings of society very well.
Into the modern age, the author discusses sorting databases with massive amounts of data, and the usefulness of alphabetical order in categorizing subjects, items, and names to a huge degree. Even so, data is now searchable with increasing sophistication. No longer does an individual need to pull out a large tome, or unroll and massive scroll to search through a list. The haptic nature of these tasks is no longer as large of a burden. Now one can easily search an item just by typing in a name into a search bar; the sorting systems are now behind the scenes, buried in code and internal server software that is often hidden from the user, and therefore almost irrelevant to the average reader.
This was a fascinating read on sorting information. I would recommend this book to those interested in library sciences, as an interesting historical backing to the systems they deal with, as well as to those who would like to study the history of human knowledge. This book is niche, to be sure, but nevertheless, quite interesting.
Into the modern age, the author discusses sorting databases with massive amounts of data, and the usefulness of alphabetical order in categorizing subjects, items, and names to a huge degree. Even so, data is now searchable with increasing sophistication. No longer does an individual need to pull out a large tome, or unroll and massive scroll to search through a list. The haptic nature of these tasks is no longer as large of a burden. Now one can easily search an item just by typing in a name into a search bar; the sorting systems are now behind the scenes, buried in code and internal server software that is often hidden from the user, and therefore almost irrelevant to the average reader.
This was a fascinating read on sorting information. I would recommend this book to those interested in library sciences, as an interesting historical backing to the systems they deal with, as well as to those who would like to study the history of human knowledge. This book is niche, to be sure, but nevertheless, quite interesting.
August 20, 2021
“We think, therefore we sort.” Judith Flanders, A Place for Everything, pg. 234
For the nerd in me, this book fulfilled many avenues of learning. This is an exhaustive and fairly thorough work on the history of alphabetical order, history, and the innate desire to sort and organize. Alphabetization is something I learned early on and therefore took for granted it’s importance, but also how much I love it. As Flanders mentions at the end, we can easily lose the need to know this system with the advent of the internet. No need to know a ab ac, etc when looking in a dictionary or thesaurus if you can simply type what you want and are granted instant access. This reminder served me as a mother to make sure I pass down this knowledge to my kids.
There was a plethora of knowledge in this book that I will be chewing and digesting it for a while yet. I loved it!
Here are two more quotes I enjoyed:
“‘I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last:’ the first and the last letters of the alphabet, and all that comes in between, represent a universe that we can order, knowledge we can pin down and later return to, and pass on to others.” Judith Flanders, A Place for Everything, pg. 235
“The drive to order one’s papers, the feeling that life was filled with too many documents to leave them in disarray, was widespread, but the solutions remained multifarious, and alphabetical order was by no means the first resort.”
Judith Flanders, A Place for Everything, pg. 200
For the nerd in me, this book fulfilled many avenues of learning. This is an exhaustive and fairly thorough work on the history of alphabetical order, history, and the innate desire to sort and organize. Alphabetization is something I learned early on and therefore took for granted it’s importance, but also how much I love it. As Flanders mentions at the end, we can easily lose the need to know this system with the advent of the internet. No need to know a ab ac, etc when looking in a dictionary or thesaurus if you can simply type what you want and are granted instant access. This reminder served me as a mother to make sure I pass down this knowledge to my kids.
There was a plethora of knowledge in this book that I will be chewing and digesting it for a while yet. I loved it!
Here are two more quotes I enjoyed:
“‘I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last:’ the first and the last letters of the alphabet, and all that comes in between, represent a universe that we can order, knowledge we can pin down and later return to, and pass on to others.” Judith Flanders, A Place for Everything, pg. 235
“The drive to order one’s papers, the feeling that life was filled with too many documents to leave them in disarray, was widespread, but the solutions remained multifarious, and alphabetical order was by no means the first resort.”
Judith Flanders, A Place for Everything, pg. 200
May 16, 2021
I though a history of alphabetising was going to be more thrilling and I realise how silly of me that was as I type this. The first three chapters about the history of writing, alphabets, writing implements and the first book collections were pretty cool, as was the final one on how alphabet-based languages, especially English, have taken over technology and how messed up this is for ideogram-based languages. I'd have loved it if the book had looked at this topic more in depth, but alas. The middle chapters are too repetitive and have way too many examples of medieval manuscripts, sententia and florilegia. And I say this being the target audience for this book, but it did get a bit boring at times. Not bad, really well researched, but a bit too tedious.
June 12, 2022
On the whole, I really enjoyed this book. While the tone of A Place for Everything was a bit more direct, detached, and scholarly than I'm accustomed to, I found the it easy to follow and cleanly presented. The experience of reading this book was rather meta in the coolest way. For example, I was reading the history behind footnotes, bibliographies, and indexes while the book itself utilized all of these organizing methods in its structure. I also thought the timeline at the end was a nice way to consolidate everything in a digestible way. I only wish that Flanders brought a bit more of herself into the book, perhaps by sharing a few of her own thoughts on doing the research for this.
I would recommend this book highly and I appreciate that I've learned a lot from it. The jury is still out on how much of the information I'll actually retain though. 😅
I would recommend this book highly and I appreciate that I've learned a lot from it. The jury is still out on how much of the information I'll actually retain though. 😅
March 10, 2021
A deeply researched history of the use of alphabetization, indexing, cataloging, and various methods of organizing information and knowledge. You can learn a lot of Western history along the way. If this is the sort of thing that sounds tedious to you, then it probably will be! Conversely, if you think this might be intriguing and fun, then I bet you’d enjoy the book.
December 31, 2021
I took this book out of the library after I heard a very interesting interview with the author on the podcast 99% Invisible. The podcast is available on popular podcasting platforms and on the web page linked to in the previous sentence. The web page has text on it, too, but it's not a complete transcript of the podcast. If you just read the web page and don't listen, you will miss the most entertaining bit, which is author Judith Flanders and the podcast producer taking a hatchet to the life and works of Melvil Dewey, creator of the Dewey Decimal System, in use to this day in many libraries, at least here in the USA. I won't spoil your listening by describing Dewey's awfulness, except to say that it was very awful indeed, on multiple levels. If you wish to go directly to the bit where Dewey is pummelled mercilessly, advance the episode to time 21:45. It'll be the most entertaining 10 minutes you'll spend today.
Dewey only gets two pages (216-218) in this book, most of it remarkably restrained. However, the footnote on page 217 gives some insight into Dewey's “character”, if that's the right word for the way he behaved.
If you can get this book from a library, I recommend that you do so and start reading at the beginning of Chapter 9, “I is for Index Cards”. Chapters 9 and 10 (out of 10 chapters total) are very entertaining – 38 great pages. The rest, I'm sorry to say, is a little slow moving. Like other reviews here, I must acknowledge that people of tediously normal sensibilities might, at this point, remark something like: “Did you really expect a history of alphabetical order to be exciting?” Yes, I did. I've read gripping books about the international flower business, and fishing, and Paraguay, why not one about alphabetical order?
But alas, first eight chapters are a chronological list of books, libraries, and monasteries that either compiled things in alphabetical order or failed to do so. Sometimes it seemed like alphabetical order was about to catch on, but then it would recede. It eventually became the norm when there was just too much damn information to keep track of any other way.
I had hoped for some entertaining eccentrics to appear at some point with the passionate conviction that alphabetical order as practiced for thousands of years was all wrong, and that a new golden age would be ushered in if we started the alphabet with “T”, or perhaps vowels first and then consonants. Alas, no such eccentrics appear to exist. One cannot fault the author.
For a long time, apparently, one of the barriers to alphabetical order – it says in this book – was the conviction of many believers in a supreme being that the supreme being would get all cheesed off and angry if he or she was not listed first, followed by his son, the saints, and other holy men. From my smugly modern perch, I thought it ridiculous that people would seriously believe that the maker of both the vast cosmos and the cellular-level clockwork of the grand variety of animals, insects, and plants would be so petty as to get his knickers in a bunch over not being mentioned first in an encyclopedia. Then, I thought, on the other hand, things in our era seem to be going to hell in a hatbox – maybe alphabetical order is to blame? Maybe we can try re-ordering a few dusty card catalogs, see if any evidence of divine approval can be detected. At this point, I'm willing to try anything.
Dewey only gets two pages (216-218) in this book, most of it remarkably restrained. However, the footnote on page 217 gives some insight into Dewey's “character”, if that's the right word for the way he behaved.
If you can get this book from a library, I recommend that you do so and start reading at the beginning of Chapter 9, “I is for Index Cards”. Chapters 9 and 10 (out of 10 chapters total) are very entertaining – 38 great pages. The rest, I'm sorry to say, is a little slow moving. Like other reviews here, I must acknowledge that people of tediously normal sensibilities might, at this point, remark something like: “Did you really expect a history of alphabetical order to be exciting?” Yes, I did. I've read gripping books about the international flower business, and fishing, and Paraguay, why not one about alphabetical order?
But alas, first eight chapters are a chronological list of books, libraries, and monasteries that either compiled things in alphabetical order or failed to do so. Sometimes it seemed like alphabetical order was about to catch on, but then it would recede. It eventually became the norm when there was just too much damn information to keep track of any other way.
I had hoped for some entertaining eccentrics to appear at some point with the passionate conviction that alphabetical order as practiced for thousands of years was all wrong, and that a new golden age would be ushered in if we started the alphabet with “T”, or perhaps vowels first and then consonants. Alas, no such eccentrics appear to exist. One cannot fault the author.
For a long time, apparently, one of the barriers to alphabetical order – it says in this book – was the conviction of many believers in a supreme being that the supreme being would get all cheesed off and angry if he or she was not listed first, followed by his son, the saints, and other holy men. From my smugly modern perch, I thought it ridiculous that people would seriously believe that the maker of both the vast cosmos and the cellular-level clockwork of the grand variety of animals, insects, and plants would be so petty as to get his knickers in a bunch over not being mentioned first in an encyclopedia. Then, I thought, on the other hand, things in our era seem to be going to hell in a hatbox – maybe alphabetical order is to blame? Maybe we can try re-ordering a few dusty card catalogs, see if any evidence of divine approval can be detected. At this point, I'm willing to try anything.
April 27, 2021
I'm not sure what went wrong for me. Books about rules, sets, lists, ordering, classification, etc? Count me in! But somehow (I know, I know how this sounds) she managed to make this boring for me. Too much history? Too much detail? I can't put my finger on in. Probably just not very engaging writing (some people can literally write about the phone book and make it fascinating ... I can't imagine a subject M.F.K. Fisher could bore me about, for instance).
So I stopped midway through, which is probably a mistake as I was reading on my Kindle prior to bedtime, and a dull book is perfect, really--I keep switching to exciting books and staying up too late.
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s). I feel a lot of readers automatically render any book they enjoy 5, but I grade on a curve!
So I stopped midway through, which is probably a mistake as I was reading on my Kindle prior to bedtime, and a dull book is perfect, really--I keep switching to exciting books and staying up too late.
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s). I feel a lot of readers automatically render any book they enjoy 5, but I grade on a curve!
May 14, 2020
I started this book with optimism, and an interest in classification generally. And the initial chapters of the book were interesting, and revelatory. The book is clearly the result of a huge amount of research and particularly, organisation (possibly not alphabetical). But I found myself flagging after halfway through, at the procession of names who featured briefly. Although the chapters are titled alphabetically, the work proceeeds chronologically and cultural and philosophical issues are stuck in a chapter at the end, whose title I failed to find reflected in the content. Therés lots of good stuff, and obviously much I had no clue about previously, and many of the footnotes are entertaining. In the end though I came away disappointed.
September 3, 2021
This is a fascinating read for people who are incredibly into books. If you don't think cataloging, organizing, and sorting are interesting, don't read this book - or at least don't criticize it for being about those things! I'm amazed by the reviews calling this book dull. It's a book about alphabetical order. If you don't like that sort of thing, don't read a book about alphabetical order!
December 28, 2023
really interesting and it felt well researched !! would recommend
November 9, 2022
Audio.
Fascinating book full of things I didn't know or hadn't heard of.
Fascinating book full of things I didn't know or hadn't heard of.
June 8, 2021
This is not a book about alphabetical order. Or, I should say, this is not merely a book about alphabetical order. This is a chronological compendium of the history of organizing information. As a person, I was curious about the stated purpose of the book; as a professional organizer who specializes in organizing paper and information, I was fascinated by it.
This book exceptionally well-researched and the citations and bibliography, which take up about 60 pages of a 320-page book, are superior. As an academic thesis, this is remarkable. As entertaining reading, it is less so. More often than is healthy, I wished someone had made a PBS documentary of the book with Lucy Worsley narrating.
Often, while reading A Place for Everything, I found myself wondering, "What if Bill Bryson had written this book?" I don't mean this in a sexist way, but he's the closest parallel I could think of when trying to consider an author impeccably well-researched book on a fascinating topic with recursive issues over thousands of years. But (for the most part), his books are fun. They've got energy. This book was...not fun. It was smart, clear, detailed...but did not have energy.
I usually complain that books like this don't have enough detail; this was not a problem in Flanders' case. I believe it's possible that she provided every detail about everything related to alphabetical order, as well as the organizing of information, ever written. Ever. Since the beginning of time. There were occasional light anecdotes, but overall, the book was just a bit dry.
However, I found a solution!
When you read the book (and honestly, if you are bothering to read reviews of it, you should read the book), start with the last two chapters. The first hundred pages manage to take us from antiquity up through the 1200s; the next hundred pages go from the late 1200s through the mid-to-late 1700s. But those final two chapters zoom through the past 250 years in 40 pages, and the advances in libraries, office supplies, filing techniques, telephone directories, and non-Latin alphabet use just zip right along. They are lighter than the preceding chapters, and provide some real "zing" about organizing information, if not alphabetization, per se.
Having started with the end, which I read in a day, I went back to the beginning and read, for a month from beginning to the very end (rereading those final two chapters, and enjoying them all the more). I've found myself digging into so many of the more obscure articles and web sites Flanders references, and this will keep me busy for months, maybe a lifetime.
This book exceptionally well-researched and the citations and bibliography, which take up about 60 pages of a 320-page book, are superior. As an academic thesis, this is remarkable. As entertaining reading, it is less so. More often than is healthy, I wished someone had made a PBS documentary of the book with Lucy Worsley narrating.
Often, while reading A Place for Everything, I found myself wondering, "What if Bill Bryson had written this book?" I don't mean this in a sexist way, but he's the closest parallel I could think of when trying to consider an author impeccably well-researched book on a fascinating topic with recursive issues over thousands of years. But (for the most part), his books are fun. They've got energy. This book was...not fun. It was smart, clear, detailed...but did not have energy.
I usually complain that books like this don't have enough detail; this was not a problem in Flanders' case. I believe it's possible that she provided every detail about everything related to alphabetical order, as well as the organizing of information, ever written. Ever. Since the beginning of time. There were occasional light anecdotes, but overall, the book was just a bit dry.
However, I found a solution!
When you read the book (and honestly, if you are bothering to read reviews of it, you should read the book), start with the last two chapters. The first hundred pages manage to take us from antiquity up through the 1200s; the next hundred pages go from the late 1200s through the mid-to-late 1700s. But those final two chapters zoom through the past 250 years in 40 pages, and the advances in libraries, office supplies, filing techniques, telephone directories, and non-Latin alphabet use just zip right along. They are lighter than the preceding chapters, and provide some real "zing" about organizing information, if not alphabetization, per se.
Having started with the end, which I read in a day, I went back to the beginning and read, for a month from beginning to the very end (rereading those final two chapters, and enjoying them all the more). I've found myself digging into so many of the more obscure articles and web sites Flanders references, and this will keep me busy for months, maybe a lifetime.
March 20, 2021
one of those 'oh yeah' questions. Why IS the alphabet in the order it is in?
[why do clocks go clockwise? and so on...]
Super interesting, but a little heavy to read. I have collected so many cool words for my files.
But I am truly intrigued by the guy who invented post-it notes in the 17th century, Robert Hooke who "wrote out what he called schedules, summaries of scientific observations or experiments, which like Aldrovandi he then glued into a large bound ledger with 'moth glew' — glue used to trap moth and butterfly specimens, which remained sticky and this did not permanently affix items onto the page, permitting new material to be accommodated." at page 165
And a Flemish grammar writer Joachim Sterck van Ringelberg who mapped out new work like this:
'I make a complete plan of the work, after which I write out the headings of the chapters on a very large board, I add or remove some as needed, modify others, or move them around ... I roughly expand each title, scribbling on scraps of paper, and pin these notes below the corresponding headings.' at p195
But one thing irks me; if you are writing a book on the alphabet and you start with chapter titles such as A is for Antiquity, B is for the Benedictines, and so on, then how many chapters do you think the book will have?
26. right?
No. It has TEN and it goes from I to Y and then stops. And I know it is silly, but it annoys me. Was it meant to be a much larger work? is this only part one of three? Did she hit the word count and just stop?
And of course, she notes that her primary focus is on Western things because the alphabetical order is by its nature English. But it was fascinating.
3 stars
[why do clocks go clockwise? and so on...]
Super interesting, but a little heavy to read. I have collected so many cool words for my files.
But I am truly intrigued by the guy who invented post-it notes in the 17th century, Robert Hooke who "wrote out what he called schedules, summaries of scientific observations or experiments, which like Aldrovandi he then glued into a large bound ledger with 'moth glew' — glue used to trap moth and butterfly specimens, which remained sticky and this did not permanently affix items onto the page, permitting new material to be accommodated." at page 165
And a Flemish grammar writer Joachim Sterck van Ringelberg who mapped out new work like this:
'I make a complete plan of the work, after which I write out the headings of the chapters on a very large board, I add or remove some as needed, modify others, or move them around ... I roughly expand each title, scribbling on scraps of paper, and pin these notes below the corresponding headings.' at p195
But one thing irks me; if you are writing a book on the alphabet and you start with chapter titles such as A is for Antiquity, B is for the Benedictines, and so on, then how many chapters do you think the book will have?
26. right?
No. It has TEN and it goes from I to Y and then stops. And I know it is silly, but it annoys me. Was it meant to be a much larger work? is this only part one of three? Did she hit the word count and just stop?
And of course, she notes that her primary focus is on Western things because the alphabetical order is by its nature English. But it was fascinating.
3 stars
December 23, 2023
Yeah look I didn’t finish this book.. and that’s not a good sign considering I’m in the target demographic (library students). Fundamentally the problem is that this is NOT a book about “the curious history of alphabetical order.” It was a disservice to the book on the part of Flanders, her editors, and her publishers to bill this book in such a wildly misleading way. I may have enjoyed this if I knew it was a history of cataloguing from the get (although likely not as my library program has provided me with several better presented histories of cataloguing) but a book that lies to me is never a book worth my time. I hated this. Where can I find a book that is actually about alphabetical order? I would really like to read a book that is actually about what this book claims to be.
March 18, 2020
"Of all the methods that have been explored...we might say that alphabetical is as close as we can get to a universally accessible, non-elitist form of sorting, and therefore it is the worst form of classification and organisation that has ever been devised, except for all those other forms that have been tried." With this paraphrase of Winston Churchill's famous declaration about democracy, Flanders concludes her fascinating, extensively-researched and detailed book about the development of alphabetical order. I loved it.
February 8, 2022
As an archivist, the organization of information is my life's work. This was not only the story of how alphabetical order ultimately won out over other sorting methods, but an interesting analysis of how cultural practices, language, religion, class, and government affected different storage methods of information through the ages, the establishment of libraries, and the gradual development of archiving.
December 16, 2020
I listened to this as an audiobook, it was fascinating to listen to the soothing voice of the narrator, but didn't always hold my interest and I didn't always follow the connections to the next topic. Nevertheless what I did get absorbed in was excellent and deserves the 4 star rating.
I think I'll be revisiting this sometime in the future on the printed page to further absorb the content.
I think I'll be revisiting this sometime in the future on the printed page to further absorb the content.
July 22, 2020
English: “We think, therefore we sort”. With this quotation, it is possible to summarize the whole objective of the book.
“A Place for Everything” presents the study and analysis made by the author of the alphabet's origins and its development as a sorting tool. It includes a lot of references to situations that supported this development, such as how the headlines or topics were a way of sorting recommended by Aristoteles, or the difficulties of librarians to catalogue and find their books when libraries started to have more than a couple of hundred books (after the invention of the mechanical movable type printing).
However, the references and specific stories included in the book can sometimes be too many, making the book tedious and challenging to read. However, this excess of information also demonstrates the exhaustive study carried out by the author.
I would recommend reading the book to those who are interested in a profound analysis of the topic but not to someone who wants a light lecture to pass the time.
Español: “Pensamos, por tanto, organizamos”: con esta cita es posible resumir el objetivo completo del libro.
“Un lugar para todo” presenta el estudio y análisis hecho por la autora sobre los orígenes del alfabeto y su desarrollo como herramienta de organización. Incluye muchas referencias a situaciones específicas que fueron parte de este proceso, tales como que Aristóteles fue quien originalmente propuso la organización de textos, o las dificultades que tuvieron los bibliotecarios para catalogar y encontrar libros cuando las bibliotecas comenzaron a tener más de un par de cientos de libros (después de la invención de la prensa mecánica).
Sin embargo, estas referencias e historias puntuales incluidas en el libro pueden a veces ser demasiadas, haciendo al libro tedioso y difícil de leer. Sin embargo, este mismo exceso de información también demuestra el exhaustivo estudio llevado a cabo por la autora.
Recomendaría leer este libro solo a aquellos interesados en un profundo análisis del tema, pero no a alguien que quiera una lectura liviana para pasar el tiempo.
“A Place for Everything” presents the study and analysis made by the author of the alphabet's origins and its development as a sorting tool. It includes a lot of references to situations that supported this development, such as how the headlines or topics were a way of sorting recommended by Aristoteles, or the difficulties of librarians to catalogue and find their books when libraries started to have more than a couple of hundred books (after the invention of the mechanical movable type printing).
However, the references and specific stories included in the book can sometimes be too many, making the book tedious and challenging to read. However, this excess of information also demonstrates the exhaustive study carried out by the author.
I would recommend reading the book to those who are interested in a profound analysis of the topic but not to someone who wants a light lecture to pass the time.
Español: “Pensamos, por tanto, organizamos”: con esta cita es posible resumir el objetivo completo del libro.
“Un lugar para todo” presenta el estudio y análisis hecho por la autora sobre los orígenes del alfabeto y su desarrollo como herramienta de organización. Incluye muchas referencias a situaciones específicas que fueron parte de este proceso, tales como que Aristóteles fue quien originalmente propuso la organización de textos, o las dificultades que tuvieron los bibliotecarios para catalogar y encontrar libros cuando las bibliotecas comenzaron a tener más de un par de cientos de libros (después de la invención de la prensa mecánica).
Sin embargo, estas referencias e historias puntuales incluidas en el libro pueden a veces ser demasiadas, haciendo al libro tedioso y difícil de leer. Sin embargo, este mismo exceso de información también demuestra el exhaustivo estudio llevado a cabo por la autora.
Recomendaría leer este libro solo a aquellos interesados en un profundo análisis del tema, pero no a alguien que quiera una lectura liviana para pasar el tiempo.
March 26, 2021
This was truly fascinating. I am a book lover, and I worked at a public library for almost 20 years but don’t have an MLS. I don’t know if any of this history is covered in MLS curriculum but I have a new reverence for the alphabet and the organization it affords. I did not know letters came before numbers, I really hadn’t thought about the origins of the written language or appreciated the universal applications of the English language to data. This book is very detailed, sometimes to a fault, but I am glad I read it through. I'm proud of the library system's part in creating order, but personally would’ve liked a bit more about the Dewey Decimal system - but that isn’t what this book is intended for. I recommend this book for bibliophiles, linguists and philologists.
February 28, 2025
I can't remember how I came across this title, but it was an interesting listen. It felt more like an explanation of how people categorized things over the course of history, rather than solely being about the invention of the alphabet and its use over time. I learned about the origins of the printing press, hanging tabs, file folders, the 2-ring binder, and the differences between table of contents, glossaries, and indexes. I would check out the print book to view the timeline included at the back.
The author started using letters as the chapter titles, but only did A through H, before jumping to Y(2K). An interesting read for sure. Three out of five stars.
The author started using letters as the chapter titles, but only did A through H, before jumping to Y(2K). An interesting read for sure. Three out of five stars.
August 18, 2024
From the creation and purpose of lever arch files and desks to the invention of alphabet, this book informed me of so many things I had never even realised I didn't know. Really fascinating and the sort of facts that anyone with a better retention of details than me (i.e. every person in the world) can interject into so many conversations. Wonderful, and I would say THE essential test for anyone doing any sort of library or archival studies.
April 17, 2025
3.75 stars
I learned so much from this small, but dense book. It was fascinating, fun, and yes sometimes dull because of the breadth of information, but overall captivating. As a Librarian, I love how relevant all of this was to my interests, as well as my wonderful profession.
I learned so much from this small, but dense book. It was fascinating, fun, and yes sometimes dull because of the breadth of information, but overall captivating. As a Librarian, I love how relevant all of this was to my interests, as well as my wonderful profession.
June 3, 2021
Pretty interesting read for me, but it's not for everyone. If you aren't really enthusiastic about history, organization or printing, this has potential to be a real slog.
August 26, 2021
It was interesting. There's a history for everything. Beyond that, I struggled to get super into this but I'm not sure how interesting a book on the history of the alphabet would be. One takeaway is the continued awe at our ability as humans to fight about literally everything and anything.
October 31, 2022
Em busca da organização do conhecimento em bibliotecas, arquivos e outras áreas. Um livro fascinante
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