Compendiums

Many of us have probably come across the word compendium. According to those in the know it is a play on a collection (or compilation) of information or possibly sets

of knowledge. You are probably wondering what that has to do with you. Well if you think of it, a cookbook is a compendium of knowledge on cooking of food.

Obviously across time, it is a body of knowledge that has grown and today one can find cooking from India, France, Thailand and any other particular country. Most of

us have also sometime in our life come across encyclopaedias which is another form of putting together knowledge.


Then of course, we cannot forget the compendiums of knowledge related to different religions whether it be Christianity (the Bible), Islam or Judaism. All of these

compendiums have played a valuable role in our lives of recording and putting together information that is accessible to this and future generations. This helps us to

make sense of our world and of course to revisit these compendiums and where possible to revise them based on knew knowledge or information available.


For the average person, they might consider putting together their own compendium. This could be a collection of information about their lives. Most would consider

this a biography (or autobiography).


Another area would be to choose an area that one is truly curious about and explore existing compendiumsCompendiums and through that identify new areas to develop and possibly contributing and

compiling your own one. Now none of these are of course easy endeavours, as many would say it is not for the fainthearted. The rewards I imagine would be plentiful

as a compendium is likely to stay around long after you have left.

All right, enough of the morbidity.
All this is to say, compendiumsCompendiums
are valuable even to this day. Without compediums, it would mean that we would have no record of the evolution of a body of knowledge. Or, we would have no idea of

the breadth of existing knowledge. Compendiums give us a place from which to start. We all can use compendiums and each of us would get something different from it.

Some of us may even disagree with it. Notwithstanding this, without its existence, we would have nothing to disagree with. Oral history has taught us the importance

of compiling and putting together versions of knowledge in order to ensure that we learn from it, but I believe also so we do not have to reinvent the wheel.