Paired informal and scholarly essays show how everyday events reveal fundamental concepts of data, including its creation, aggregation, management, and use.
Whether questioning numbers on a scale, laughing at a misspelling of one’s name, or finding ourselves confused in a foreign supermarket, we are engaging with data. The only way to handle data responsibly, says Melanie Feinberg in this incisive work, is to take into account its human character. Though the data she discusses may seem familiar, close scrutiny shows it to be ambiguous, complicated, and uncertain: unruly. Drawing on the tools of information science, she uses everyday events such as deciding between Blender A and Blender B on Amazon to demonstrate a practical, critical, and generative mode of thinking about data: its creation, management, aggregation, and use.
Each chapter pairs a self-contained main essay (an adventure) with a scholarly companion essay (the reflection). The adventure begins with an anecdote—visiting the library, running out of butter, cooking rice on a different stove. Feinberg argues that to understand the power and pitfalls of data science, we must attend to the data itself, not merely the algorithms that manipulate it. As she reflects on the implications of commonplace events, Feinberg explicates fundamental concepts of data that reveal the many tiny design decisions—which may not even seem like design at all—that shape how data comes to be. Through the themes of serendipity, objectivity, equivalence, interoperability, taxonomy, labels, and locality, she illuminates the surprisingly pervasive role of data in our daily thoughts and lives.
Acknowledgments xi Introduction: A Spirit of Adventure 1 1 Serendipity 13 2 Objectivity 33 3 Equivalence 61 4 Interoperability 95 5 Taxonomy 129 6 Labels 159 7 Locality 191 Conclusion: Still Life with Data 231 Notes 243 References 275 Index 301
Melanie Feinberg is Associate Professor in the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Paired informal and scholarly essays show how everyday events reveal fundamental concepts of data, including its creation, aggregation, management, and use.
Whether questioning numbers on a scale, laughing at a misspelling of one’s name, or finding ourselves confused in a foreign supermarket, we are engaging with data. The only way to handle data responsibly, says Melanie Feinberg in this incisive work, is to take into account its human character. Though the data she discusses may seem familiar, close scrutiny shows it to be ambiguous, complicated, and uncertain: unruly. Drawing on the tools of information science, she uses everyday events such as deciding between Blender A and Blender B on Amazon to demonstrate a practical, critical, and generative mode of thinking about data: its creation, management, aggregation, and use.
Each chapter pairs a self-contained main essay (an adventure) with a scholarly companion essay (the reflection). The adventure begins with an anecdote—visiting the library, running out of butter, cooking rice on a different stove. Feinberg argues that to understand the power and pitfalls of data science, we must attend to the data itself, not merely the algorithms that manipulate it. As she reflects on the implications of commonplace events, Feinberg explicates fundamental concepts of data that reveal the many tiny design decisions—which may not even seem like design at all—that shape how data comes to be. Through the themes of serendipity, objectivity, equivalence, interoperability, taxonomy, labels, and locality, she illuminates the surprisingly pervasive role of data in our daily thoughts and lives.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments xi Introduction: A Spirit of Adventure 1 1 Serendipity 13 2 Objectivity 33 3 Equivalence 61 4 Interoperability 95 5 Taxonomy 129 6 Labels 159 7 Locality 191 Conclusion: Still Life with Data 231 Notes 243 References 275 Index 301
Author
Melanie Feinberg is Associate Professor in the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
