Indexing Systems

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Indexing Systems

The Evolution of Knowledge Organisation in Modern Society

Communication studies Media studies Sociology Graphical and digital media applications

Author: Alberto Cevolini

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Collection: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies

Language: English

Published by: Palgrave Macmillan

Published on: 23rd January 2026

Format: LCP-protected ePub

ISBN: 9783032138132


Search Engines as Indexing Systems

This book analyses search engines as indexing systems: structures of social memory, designed to organise information access when knowledge is stored in archives.

It views indexing systems as a highly improbable outcome of socio-cultural evolution, and charts the main stages of this social process through the impact of printing on knowledge organisation, the rise of mechanical memory, the practice of tagging, and contemporary strategies of de-indexing.

In the process, the book sheds new light on the underexplored sociological question “Where do search engines come from?”

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