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A Place for Everything: The Curious History…
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A Place for Everything: The Curious History of Alphabetical Order (edition 2020)

by Judith Flanders (Author)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
3531372,531 (3.68)8
Few of us think much of the alphabet and its familiar sing-song order once we've learned it as children. And yet the order of the alphabet, that simple knowledge that we take for granted, plays far more of a role in our lives than we usually consider. From the school register to the telephone book, from dictionaries and encyclopaedias to the library shelves, our lives are ordered from A to Z. This magical system of organization not only guides us to the correct bus route or train schedule or the jar of coriander seeds between the cinnamon and the cumin in the supermarket, but it also, in the library or the bookshop, gives us the ability to sift through centuries of thought and writing, of knowledge and literature. Alphabetical order allows us to sort, to file and to find the information we have, and to locate the information we need. In this entirely original new book, Judith Flanders draws our attention both to the neglected ubiquity of the alphabet and the long and complex history of its rise to prominence.… (more)
Member:modalursine
Title:A Place for Everything: The Curious History of Alphabetical Order
Authors:Judith Flanders (Author)
Info:Basic Books (2020), 352 pages
Collections:WaterfallLane, Your library
Rating:
Tags:WD6

Work Information

A Place for Everything: The Curious History of Alphabetical Order by Judith Flanders

  1. 00
    Just My Type: A Book About Fonts by Simon Garfield (nessreader)
    nessreader: Two entertaining books about letters for the general public, garfield on fonts and flanders on alphabetical order.
  2. 00
    The Book on the Bookshelf by Henry Petroski (nessreader)
    nessreader: Both flanders + petroski write about the historical development and practicalities of arrangement of libraries.
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» See also 8 mentions

English (13)  Portuguese (1)  All languages (14)
Showing 1-5 of 13 (next | show all)
Very interesting and detailed, to the point of getting a bit repetitive with some examples. Lots of interesting facts that stick in the brain, and the central thesis of how technology and other factors shaped alphabetical order is well supported. Works best as an audio book, imo. ( )
  TheKroog | Oct 18, 2023 |
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. ( )
  steve02476 | Jan 3, 2023 |
The scope of this book goes beyond alphabetical order and also provides background information about the development of written language, including the history of bookmaking, along with broader commentary about the way knowledge is stored and communicated (and how that has changed throughout time and in various world cultures). I suspect that these topics have already been covered in earlier books, so I am unsure what is unique about this particular work.

The author makes a case for alphabetical arrangement of knowledge as an agnostic/neutral form of organization. I can agree with that assertion for known item searching, but I am unconvinced that it would hold for subject searching as well. (The ready examples I can think of include the Medical Subject Headings of the National Library of Medicine and the thesaurus of the American Psychological Association, both of which are organized as non alphabetical subject taxonomies.) Recommended for librarians and other individuals interested in the classification of human knowledge. ( )
  librarianarpita | Nov 21, 2022 |
Note: I received a digital review copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.
  fernandie | Sep 15, 2022 |
An interesting overview of filing, ordering, and alphabetising, and all the various systems that were tried before alphabetical order dominated – and abruptly disappeared, to be replaced by the power of the search engine. The first half of this book, dealing as it did with much medieval wrangling over manuscript organisation, rather dragged, and it felt like the latter part was a bit rushed: I'd have liked much more on the history of blackboards and office supplies, and the vileness of Melvil Dewey. I cannot fault the book on its organisation (as you'd expect): exemplary notes, references, citations, and lists of illustrations. ( )
  adzebill | Dec 11, 2021 |
Showing 1-5 of 13 (next | show all)
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Judith Flandersprimary authorall editionscalculated
Winwood, JuliaNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Few of us think much of the alphabet and its familiar sing-song order once we've learned it as children. And yet the order of the alphabet, that simple knowledge that we take for granted, plays far more of a role in our lives than we usually consider. From the school register to the telephone book, from dictionaries and encyclopaedias to the library shelves, our lives are ordered from A to Z. This magical system of organization not only guides us to the correct bus route or train schedule or the jar of coriander seeds between the cinnamon and the cumin in the supermarket, but it also, in the library or the bookshop, gives us the ability to sift through centuries of thought and writing, of knowledge and literature. Alphabetical order allows us to sort, to file and to find the information we have, and to locate the information we need. In this entirely original new book, Judith Flanders draws our attention both to the neglected ubiquity of the alphabet and the long and complex history of its rise to prominence.

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