Weinberger, Everything Is Miscellaneous
I read David Weinberger’s new book Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder recently and I recommend it. If you use del.icio.us, Wikipedia, and Library Thing, it won’t all seem brand new or earth-shattering, but it’ll get you thinking about some things in new ways. Others may get freaked out. The more people that start thinking about this way of working, the better.
It’s not perfect. Sometimes it’s disjointed, as though assembled from smaller parts; I think it needed more one more close edit. Even a book about miscellaneity requires a solid backbone. There are two almost identical mentions of an Umberto Eco quote that stand out strangely. Nevertheless, there is much interesting in the book.
Everything Is Miscellaneous mentions FRBR in the “What Is a Book?” section that begins on page 118 of my manifestation (Times Books, 2007). Weinberger talks about Hamlet and all the variations and versions of it, and quotes Thom Hickey, of OCLC fame when explaining xISBN. Then on pp. 122-123 there’s a bit about FRBR.
Huzzah to Weinberger for exposing FRBR to a wider audience!