Prior to reading Weinberger’s chapter on “Alphabetization
and its Discontents”, I had found myself looking at the alphabet as the
building blocks to our childhood. As
children, it is one of the most basic concepts we learn growing up and typically
no one looks up at their parent and asks why it is organized in this
fashion. Personally, I believe that the
use of the alphabet is still relevant in our daily lives whether it is how a
class roster is listed or the example they gave about loading a bus alphabetically
opposed to using a person’s race. On the
other hand Charles Luthy and Mortimer Adler’s approach that the alphabet is
considered arbitrary challenges my viewpoint on the subject. Adler’s “alphabetiasis” and eagerness to change
the organization of the Encyclopaedia Britannica was a result of his opinion
that by forfeiting to the simplistic organization of the alphabet was an “evasion
of intellectual responsibility” (Weinberger, 2007). Unfortunately for Adler,
while his topical organization was thought-provoking and enticing, the
realization that not one topically organized encyclopedia had succeeded was
enough of a determining factor for the chairman of the board who decided to
continue with an alphabetical organization of the Britannica.
Dmitrii Ivanovich Mendeleev had the task of trying to organize
the elements in a way in which people would understand the relationships
between one element and the next. Once Mendeleev
found a pattern based upon shared properties and relationships he organized
them into the widely known periodic table of elements. This widely used table is organized based on
the close relationships and connections of surrounding elements opposed to an alphabetical
table.
While I am an advocate for alphabetization, I understand the
importance of organizing by relationships, and the periodic table is one of
these great examples. Similar to the
periodic table, I thought about how our libraries and even book stores are
organized. If a student were to be
purchasing an English book for class they would go to the English section which
may then be organized by course. However, imagine if the book store, similar to
the library were not organized by subjects or topics but instead
alphabetically. If you were searching
for “Beowulf” for your Chaucer course and then for the same class needed to
purchase “The House of Fame”, you would be searching in various sections of the
store opposed to the more topical route of organization.
Adler, Luthy, and even Mendeleev were not around to see or
understand how organization may have been handled digitally. I thoroughly believe that they would be
impressed or at least intrigued by the various ways we have found ourselves
organizing different items. Google for
example, may been a search engine they would find to be beneficial due to capabilities
of finding the most relevant answer upon reviews and other searches opposed to alphabetically. When Adler said “inherent in all things to be
learned we should be able to find inner connections”, I believe he left us with
the idea that connecting relationships allow us to better understand opposed to
accepting an impulsive desire to organize in a considerably easy method such as
the alphabet. Weinberger has left me with
a new appreciation for topical organization but also the understanding that our
alphabet which some may consider outdated, is still as important as it was
hundreds of years ago.
I wholeheartedly agree with you! Alphabetization is still useful. I understand that, yes, for some things, such as the periodic table, it isn't the best method to organize a collection, but I do believe that it's still beneficial to our society. A class roster is an excellent example of this, good point. I also believe that when it comes down to it, alphabetization could be incorporated with other organizational methods, like how libraries work now. Libraries are sectioned into fiction, nonfiction, mystery, children's, and so on, but are still alphabetized in a specific section.
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