Leah Perry

Don’t Look Up and Information Dependence

The new Netflix Original craze Don’t Look Up sees a PhD candidate and an astronomy professor discover a 9km comet (Ronseal-esquely-named “planet killer”) on course to hit Earth in 6 months, and subsequently struggle to convey to the world the exact severity of the situation, i.e. complete extinction of all life on Earth.

Circumventing Categorisation: How Traditional Knowledge Organisation Conflicts with the Fundamental Objective of Contemporary Gender and Sexual Identities

Categorisation is essential to the human condition. Identifying and labelling entities – physical and abstract – help us learn, organise, and make decisions. It is how we understand the world around us. Sometimes it is a matter of life or death (“These berries are poisonous and therefore should not be consumed.”) and other times itContinue reading “Circumventing Categorisation: How Traditional Knowledge Organisation Conflicts with the Fundamental Objective of Contemporary Gender and Sexual Identities”

Public Library Promotion

I try to call my family at least once a week, even though – because we’re all living in a real-world Groundhog Day – we end up discussing the same things every week. Have you gone for any nice walks? Did you watch that thing on telly last night? How’s your newfound hobby coming along?Continue reading “Public Library Promotion”

Data Visualisation: A Double-Edged Sword?

As someone who eagerly awaits December for the release of my yearly Goodreads and Spotify statistics, I’m a sucker for data visualisation. I can’t deny it: I love word clouds with swirling, bold fonts; heat maps with deep reds and cool blues; line graphs with soaring peaks and plummeting troughs… but how helpful are theyContinue reading “Data Visualisation: A Double-Edged Sword?”

Metadata (or, if you will, a post about data about data)

Metadata can be defined simply as data about data. Imagine your favourite book. Its metadata includes information such as: who wrote it; when it was first published; what format it is available in; how many pages it has; the front cover. Metadata, ultimately, allows us to identify, discover, appropriately organise and maintain information. As MagalyContinue reading “Metadata (or, if you will, a post about data about data)”

Track and Trace and Being Comfortable in the Grey

As the bridge between the digital world and the analogue world becomes shorter and shorter, the space between our online and offline selves begins to blur. Our devices (mobiles, laptops, tablets, smart devices) can ascertain a fair deal about us that we might not have ever considered they could. Networked sites and technologies can buildContinue reading “Track and Trace and Being Comfortable in the Grey”