Robert Darnton Quotes

The more we can organize, find and manage information, the more effectively we can function in our modern world.

I'm interested in sites that help people find information and filter what's available. The Internet is so big that no one can stay on top of everything.

What are the libraries of science but files of newspapers?

It is easier to go to the Internet than to go to the library, undoubtedly. But the shift from no libraries to the existence of libraries was a much greater shift than what we've seen with the Internet's development.

All the information in the world has been pretty dispersed, but Google's mission has been to organize it and make it universally accessible.

I try not to read Google.

Inside all the computers of any large corporation is every decision that gets made. But people spend a huge amount of time trying to find the correct piece of information.

The access to information the web provides is both daunting and exciting. Information that was once secreted away in library stacks is now so much more easily available.

Technology has enabled an environment where information is constantly fed to us on a real-time basis. You can't slow the feed of information, nor would you want to, but you can control and organize your consumption.

There's no such thing as information overload-only filter failure.

I think something that's really understudied and misunderstood is the use of information.

Those who declared librarians obsolete when the Internet rage first appeared are now red-faced. We need them more than ever. The Internet is full of 'stuff' but its value and readability is often questionable. 'Stuff' doesn't give you a competitive edge, high-quality related information does.

It’s not information overload. It’s filter failure.

I think we are definitely suffering from an information overload, but I believe that there is going to be better and better ways of organizing that information and processing it so that it will enhance your daily life. I just think that technology and information, it's overwhelming at the moment, but it's really going to make life better.

Library Science is the key to all science, just as mathematics is its language - and civilization will rise or fall, depending on how well librarians do their jobs.

Dad claims that library science is the foundation of all sciences just as math is the key -- and we will survive or founder, depending on how well the librarians do their jobs. Librarians didn't look glamorous to me but maybe Dad had hit on a not very obvious truth.

The search for truth in cyberspace will take you through the wormhole, and there's nothing on the other side but pedants and nitpickers and bottomless ambiguity. If you're not careful, you'll spend all your time proving everything and understanding nothing.

You've got to be happy if they get your facts right. Since January I don't think I've recognized a damned thing that I've filed. I just pour everything out of the boot. Otherwise you get a phone call at three in the morning asking why you left out that the candidate had his teeth drilled that morning.

We have for the first time an economy based on a key resource [Information] that is not only renewable, but self- generating. Running out of it is not a problem, but drowning in it is.

The amount of information, the amount of incoming that any administration has to deal with today and respond to much more rapidly than ever before, that makes it different.

I suppose we all share this pipe-dream of being able to reach out a hand and find anything at will; what is amazing is that we think that good filing could somehow make it comes true. On the contrary: putting a letter into a filing system is like releasing your ferret in the Hampton Court maze.

Writing a book is as different from digital curation as night and day. Digital curation is a series of split-second decisions: good/no good. It can even be done algorithmically. Writing is process-intensive activity.

I have assistants that use the internet a lot more than I do. I use the internet for photo research, but for me personally, probably just because of my age, I'm not that mechanically inclined.

If you want to become a biologist, it doesn't help to go into the Harvard biology library and all the information is there for you. You have to know what to look for and the internet is the same, just magnified.

The enormous multiplication of books in every branch of knowledge is one of the greatest evils of this age, since it presents one of the most serious obstacles to the acquisition of correct information by throwing in the reader's way piles of lumber in which he must painfully grope for the scraps of useful matter, peradventure interspersed.