Before starting the research, I had to first understand the machinations of “Ask Alice”. I am still not sure how exactly she works but what I found out right away is, that the title of my book is too long since it did not yield and closely related results on my first trial.
The heat maps, the I accidentally discovered in my vain attempt to open the listed book by simply clicking on the Icon next to it, are quite intriguing. The seem to show how the algorithm of Alice is working by highlighting the key words/expressions in said book that link back to my original input in some way. Although how I am supposed to read them stays a riddle to me, they are in fact quite pretty.
After further unsuccessfully trying to open the book on Ask Alice and my pride not allowing me to return the tutorials I simply googled the results shown by mysterious Alice.
My hopes were crushed yet again as I discovered through Google, that the top results of the 915, Alice provided me with, were all about critiquing/incensing post-modern architecture with exactly zero reference to my input.
So, I had my topic changed to “order” as in orders and library to all of Xenotheka. This time I ended up with Marx, Seneca and Aquinas, which to me seemed to be step in the right direction, as in closer in time to the 16th century than prior results. But I wasn’t quite sure whether I could apply Marx to Serlios portals, although I am sure there are talented humanities students who could.
After iterating through more combinations of brains and libraries I must admit that I couldn’t find a book that was referencing mine. Maybe I didn’t follow the rabbit hole far enough but I hereby admit defeat.
