Fable
That warehouse in the city that finds books by distance
In the city there was a new book warehouse. Books were not arranged by author surname or by year and month, but by content scent. Those about navigation were near port maps, those about storms were near shipwreck records, and those about fish markets were next to dock tax ledgers.
The old archivist wasn't used to it at first. He only knew how to search by catalog, and when asked about "the Qingfan shipwreck," there was no such title in the catalog, so he said the warehouse didn't have it.
The new librarian led him to the "nearby district." Although there was no book with the same title, there were several records about the same sea area, the same wind direction, and the same cargo as the Blue Sail. The old librarian was surprised: it turned out that usefulness did not require the same name.
For the first repair, the librarian brought over every similar book. The table was piled with sea stories, fish-price rumors, and boat songs, while the records with real evidentiary value were squeezed out by miscellaneous books.
The warehouse manager therefore did two things for each book: first convert the content into comparable coordinates, then retain the source, time, category, and credibility. When searching, first find nearby items by distance, then filter out unsuitable ones by conditions.
The senior librarian asked again what to do if someone wanted to find a book by its exact title. The warehouse manager said that could still be done by title; the new book warehouse solved a different kind of problem: when things were not called by the same name, yet were close in meaning.
Later, when city residents looked up similar cases, past experience and related materials, they all came to this book warehouse. Its value was not in remembering shelf positions, but in placing things with similar meanings within a distance where they could be found quickly.
Later the book warehouse also ran into misuse. Some assumed that being close in distance meant being trustworthy, and nearly treated a boat song as a legal precedent. The warehouse keeper reminded them that finding near neighbors by meaning is only the first step; after that you still have to look at source and purpose. Similarity can help people discover candidates, but whether something can be adopted still has to pass screening against real-world conditions. The old librarian later used the old catalog and the new book warehouse together. When you know the exact name, you go through the catalog; when you don't know the name and only know the meaning, you go through the nearby neighborhoods. Each method has its own scenario, and organizing content by distance gave an entry point to many questions that previously could not even be asked. Later the book warehouse's rules were written at the door: first find what is similar, then check the source, and finally look at the purpose. This sentence was later written into the newcomers' handbook, reminding everyone to look at the on-site cost first before talking about saving effort. And precisely because of this reminder, when similar difficult problems came up again later, people would not rush to apply the old method. They learned to first ask which step bears the risk, then decide whether to let go, tighten up, or rearrange the process.