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Originally Posted by Hitch
Yes, but as we all know, that's not an index, it's a concordance. Not the same thing.
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Quite debatable whether electronic search engine = print concordance. I would argue that the ability to search the entire text of a work has no print-based counterpart. But the ability to search a book's text certainly
replaces the necessity for either a concordance or an index, in my opinion (and in my experience, since I've never once looked at, clicked on, or otherwise engaged with an electronic index or concordance). That's why searching is such a game changer in the P2E medium shift.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
I would be the first to agree that by and large, including RPN-driven indices is worthless,
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Ding, ding ding.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
but a search engine is not necessarily the natural electronic successor to an index; it's the successor to a concordance
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Ok. Perhaps successor was a poor choice of words. Suffice it to say that it is my opinion that a search engine eliminates the need for either (again: in my experience).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
and as anyone who's tried to find something on Google knows, more isn't always better.
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Nope. Can't agree there. I'll take way too much information over someone else's notions of what they think I should be focusing on any day of the week. I'm not one who really believes (or succumbs to) information overload. Give me raw, unadulterated, and uncurated search results (whether online, or limited to the text of an ebook) and I'll take it from there--thank you very much.
Another part of my problem with electronic indices and concordances stems from the fact that their entire reason for being has been changed entirely in the electronic medium shift. They went from from being purely reference-based, to purely navigation-based. Navigation aids I don't need. Page-turns and searching suffice.