Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences (Inside Technology)
Bowker, Geoffrey C.; Star, Susan Leigh
Language: English
Published by The MIT Press, 2000
- Softcover
- Used
Seller: KCMidwestbooks, Leawood, KS, U.S.A.KCMidwestbooks
AbeBooks seller since June 10, 2024
Condition: Used - Very good
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An influential interdisciplinary study of how systems of classification and standardization shape knowledge, institutions, infrastructure, and everyday life. Geoffrey C. Bowker and Susan Leigh Star examine classification not simply as an organizational convenience but as a powerful and often invisible part of social and technological infrastructure. Case studies include the International Classification of Diseases, nursing classifications, racial classification under apartheid in South Africa, and scientific classifications of viruses and tuberculosis. Published in MIT Press’s Inside Technology series, the book has become a significant work in science and technology studies, information science, sociology of knowledge, infrastructure studies, and the study of data and classification systems. Edition: Copyright 1999; stated “First MIT Press paperback edition, 2000.” Number line 10 9 8 7, indicating a later printing of the paperback edition. Condition: Very Good- softcover. Covers remain clean and attractive overall with light rubbing, shelf wear, and minor edge and corner wear. Spine is straight with light handling wear. A partially removed former owner/address label remains at the upper corner of the half-title page, with adhesive residue and surface disturbance in that area. Interior pages shown are otherwise clean and well preserved, with no writing or highlighting observed in the pages examined. Binding is sound. Please see photographs for condition details. Significance / Collector Appeal: Sorting Things Out has become an important and frequently cited work on classification, information infrastructure, standards, and the social consequences of organizing knowledge. Its subject matter has only become more relevant with the growth of databases, algorithms, digital records, automated decision-making, and large-scale information systems. Shipping / Returns: Carefully packed for shipment. Domestic shipping via USPS Media Mail unless otherwise requested. Expedited and international shipping available where permitted. Returns accepted in accordance with AbeBooks policies. SCI 3b.…
Seller Inventory # ABE-1787760285693
- Title
- Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences (Inside Technology)
- Author
- Bowker, Geoffrey C.; Star, Susan Leigh
- Publisher
- The MIT Press
- Publication year
- 2000
- Condition
- Very good
- Binding
- Soft cover
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 0262522950
- ISBN 13
- 9780262522953
- Item weight
- 1.4 pounds
- Dimensions
- 6 inches width by 9 inches height by 1.02 inches depth
- Seller catalogs
- Philosophy of Science, Science and Technology, Social Science, Sociology, Technology
What do a seventeenth-century mortality table (whose causes of death include "fainted in a bath," "frighted," and "itch"); the identification of South Africans during apartheid as European, Asian, colored, or black; and the separation of machine- from hand-washables have in common? All are examples of classification—the scaffolding of information infrastructures.
In Sorting Things Out, Geoffrey C. Bowker and Susan Leigh Star explore the role of categories and standards in shaping the modern world. In a clear and lively style, they investigate a variety of classification systems, including the International Classification of Diseases, the Nursing Interventions Classification, race classification under apartheid in South Africa, and the classification of viruses and of tuberculosis.
The authors emphasize the role of invisibility in the process by which classification orders human interaction. They examine how categories are made and kept invisible, and how people can change this invisibility when necessary. They also explore systems of classification as part of the built information environment. Much as an urban historian would review highway permits and zoning decisions to tell a city's story, the authors review archives of classification design to understand how decisions have been made. Sorting Things Out has a moral agenda, for each standard and category valorizes some point of view and silences another. Standards and classifications produce advantage or suffering. Jobs are made and lost; some regions benefit at the expense of others. How these choices are made and how we think about that process are at the moral and political core of this work. The book is an important empirical source for understanding the building of information infrastructures.
"Synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author
Susan Leigh Star was Doreen Boyce Chair for Library and Information Science, University of Pittsburgh.
"About the title" may belong to another edition of this title.
KCMidwestbooks
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