Humankind is marked by the common urge to collect, collate, categorize, and catalogue everything known about a subject. Dedicated scholarship and, more recently, advances in information technology now permit compendiums of monumental scale. Equal parts reference librarians and Renaissance men and women, four information taxonomists discuss their current projects in this panel moderated by Lawrence Weschler.
Martha Roth and John McCarter find similarities in their work on the Oriental Institute’s Chicago Assyrian Dictionary and the Field Museum’s Encyclopedia of Life, respectively. Kelly Overly brings us up to speed on the Allen Mouse Brain Atlas, and all parties express a desire to incorporate Blaise Aguera y Arcas’s Photosynth—three-dimensional imaging technology—into their attempts to record and preserve human knowledge. Where do they fall in the evolution of historical lexicographers and encyclopedists?
Presented as part of the Karla Scherer Endowed Programs