Designing Universal Knowledge - Gerlinde Schuller

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Résumé :
With its possibilities for globalization and communication, the Internet offers archives, encyclopedias, data collections, and libraries the opportunity to make their knowledge collections available worldwide. At the same time, it represents a tremendous challenge and competition in terms of creativity and technology. The demand for an orientation guide in these areas is enormous. This publication draws upon historical milestones - from the Encyclopedia of Diderot and d'Alembert all the way to Wikipedia and Google Archive - to explore the meaning of universal knowledge as well as the process of collecting, structuring, designing, and publishing it. Creators and researchers from many different fields have set standards for the classification and design of complex data collections and thus exerted an enormous influence on how knowledge is communicated. This facilitates knowledge transfer, but it also increases the danger of manipulation. Along with these aspects, the book also explores the possibilities of universal design and presents new approaches to visualizing complex information.

Biographie:
Gerlinde Schuller is head of the Information Design Studio in Amsterdam (NL). She is specialized in information design and visual journalism, she teaches information design and writes about the discipline. Her visual-editorial projects include the book 'Making the Impossible Possible' (2006) on economic superlatives and 'Designing universal knowledge' (2008) on information design. www.theworldasflatland.net