William, the Conqueror of Information

Well, hello again, readers! The internet has arrived at our home, and so I am now able to post on a regular basis. As I am sure you are aware of, I started my new job on Monday, which is exhilarating. I'll talk more about that later. In this post, I want to share with you an interesting idea I've been mulling over recently.

In the time between our arrival here, and the installation of Uverse, we have been watching a great deal of DVD's. Among our long packed away belongings, we discovered our set of Simon Schama's History of Britain. We are working our way through them, and the most recent episode we finished was the one dealing with the Norman invasion of England in 1066, let by William, the then Duke of Normandy. Of course, one cannot talk about the reign of William without at least mentioning the Domesday Book. Indeed, here is a page from the book, from Warwickshire:



In the episode, Schama points out that William gained his power not only at the tip of the sword, but also because of the information he had in the book. Schama calls him the first "king of the database." I think it's great that he makes the point that it is not only brute force that equates to power, but those that have and control access to information. Sounds like a profession, no? Well, fortunately for we librarians, as well as the wider world, we have a very different code of ethics than William and his fellow Norman aristocrats. But, it is interesting to think of William nearly a millennium ago being a very distant forebear to my profession today.