If information was knowledge...

‘We need to be ready to produce and create genuinely digital content for the first time. And we need to understand better what it will mean to assemble, edit and present such content in a digital setting where social recommendation and other forms of curation will play a much more influential role’ - new BBC director general George Entwistle in his first speech to staff.

‘If information was knowledge, dictionaries would be saints’ – Sufi saying
EMI’s new five CD Vernon Handley retrospective contains around 3500 megabytes of digital information. But, far more importantly, it also contains a generous helping of that increasingly unfashionable commodity - knowledge. As well as the obvious choices of Vaughan Williams’ London Symphony and Elgar’s Violin Concerto with Nigel Kennedy there are surprise delights including Sibelius' Violin Concerto with Tasmin Little and Fauré's Pavane. The ill-wind of EMI’s demise is blowing some good in the form of cleverly compiled bargain priced bundles of left-field repertoire from knowledgeable musicians such as Vernon Handley and Sir Adrian Boult. This new Tod Handley box is selling for less than £15. Will a recommendation suffice? Or does it have to be a “social recommendation and other forms of curation”?

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