Assembly Codes: The Logistics of Media. Matthew Hockenberry, Nicole Starosielski, and Susan Zieger, eds. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2021. 248p. Paper, $26.95 (ISBN: 978-1478010760).

Abstract

“Logistical media” isn’t a common term in the world of libraries and archives; a cursory search for it in the database LISTA returns zero results. Assembly Codes: The Logistics of Media persuaded me within about three pages, however, that it should be. In the book’s coinage, logistical media are media of “orientation”: clocks, inventories, spreadsheets, communications satellites, even postage stamps (3). Tools that enable the creation, arrangement, and distribution of goods and services, “[l]ogistical media are processual; they orient, locate, and organize words, things, people, and data” (96). Examples in information professions abound: linked data, thesauri, RFID tags, and integrated library systems, but also book trucks, couriers, shelving, and signage.