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Florilegia were compilations of excerpts from other writings, essentially mashing up selected passages and connecting dots from existing texts to illuminate a specific topic or doctrine or idea. The word comes from the Latin for “flower” and “gather.” The florilegium is commonly considered one of the earliest recorded examples of remix culture.
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Maria Popova • Networked Knowledge and Combinatorial Creativity
In talking about these medieval manuscripts, Adam Gopnik writes in The New Yorker:
Which is interesting, recognizing not only the absolute vale of content but also its relational value, the value not just of information itself but also of information architecture, not just of content but also... See more
Our minds were altered less by books than by index slips.
Which is interesting, recognizing not only the absolute vale of content but also its relational value, the value not just of information itself but also of information architecture, not just of content but also... See more
Maria Popova • Networked Knowledge and Combinatorial Creativity
Change is endlessly fascinating to brains. ‘Almost all perception is based on the detection of change’ says the neuroscientist Professor Sophie Scott. ‘Our perceptual systems basically don’t work unless there are changes to detect.’ In a stable environment, the brain is relatively calm. But when it detects change, that event is immediately register
... See moreWill Storr • The Science of Storytelling: Why Stories Make Us Human, and How to Tell Them Better
Scholars quickly set about organizing the new mental environment by clipping their favorite passages from books and assembling them into huge tomes—florilegia, bouquets of text—so that readers could sample the best parts.
Clive Thompson • Smarter Than You Think
These are pages from the most famous florilegium, completed by Thomas of Ireland in the 14th century. Florilegia were compilations of excerpts from other writings, essentially mashing up selected passages and connecting dots from existing texts to illuminate a specific topic or doctrine or idea. The word comes from the Latin for “flower” and “gathe... See more
Maria Popova • Networked Knowledge and Combinatorial Creativity
So that, I think, is the role of information curators: They are our curiosity sherpas, who lead us to things we didn’t know we were interested in until we, well, until we are. Until we pay attention to them — because someone whose taste and opinion we trust points us to them, and we integrate them with our existing pool of resources, and they becom... See more
Maria Popova • Networked Knowledge and Combinatorial Creativity
The human brain didn't physically change over the past thousands of years.
What changed was our "software"—and shamans were the first programmers.
They installed a "software update" that transformed how we think and solve problems.
This is how they did it.___LINE... See more
Curation has been too focused on the information and not enough on architecture; how we collect, store, augment, and utilize what’s already in our minds.