What: "Everything is Miscellaneous," the UNC/SILS 2006 Henderson LectureWho: Dr. David WeinbergerWhen: 2 p.m., Thursday, December 7, 2006 Where: Murphey Hall Auditorium (room 116), UNC-Chapel Hill. A reception will follow. Abstract Ever since Aristotle, we have organized knowledge according to some basic principles. By odd coincidence - that is, by no coincidence at all - these are the same principles that guide how we organize objects in the physical world. The most common structure of knowledge is the branching tree, found in everything from books (volumes, chapters, sections…) to the tree of life (animals, vertebrates, mammals…). We've assumed that to know a field is to see how everything has its unique place. Then the digital revolution happened, eliminating the restrictions of physicality. For example, a real world librarian has to put a book on one and only one shelf whereas Amazon files books under as many different categories as possible. And, while traditionally the owners of the information own and control the organization of that information, in the digital realm, the users own the organization. You can't make changes in the basic principles of organization without changing the nature of knowledge itself: What knowledge is, who gets to decide, what constitutes a subject or topic, where does knowledge's authority come from? We are in the midst of this revolution that touches how we organize our businesses, our customers' control of the information they touch, and the "who" and "what" of trust. - Abe Crystal