Approaching the History of Information and Media from Many Different Viewpoints

“As long as the centuries continue to unfold, the number of books will grow continually, and one can predict that a time will come when it will be almost as difficult to learn anything from books as from the direct study of the whole universe. It will be almost as convenient to search for some bit of truth concealed in nature as it will be to find it hidden away in an immense multitude of bound volumes…” – Denis Diderot, Encyclopédie (1755)

 "A chronological record of significant events . . . often including an explanation of their causes."-- definition of history from the Merriam Webster Online Dictionary, accessed 12-2010.

"History (from Greek ἱστορία - historia, meaning 'inquiry, knowledge acquired by investigation') is the study of the human past."-- Wikipedia, accessed 12-2010.

 

As the quotation from Denis Diderot suggests, the information overload that we associate with the Internet is not new. While the Internet is undoubtedly compounding an old problem, its instant searchability offers new means of exploring the rapidly expanding universe of information. From Cave Paintings to the Internet cannot save you from information overload and offers no panacea for information insufficiency. Using Internet technology, it is designed to help you follow the development of information and media, and attitudes about them, from the beginning of records to the present. Containing annotated references to discoveries, developments of a social, scientific, theoretical or technological nature, as well as references to physical books, documents, artifacts, art works, and to websites and other digital media, it arranges, both chronologically and thematically, selected historical examples and recent developments of the methods used to record, distribute, exchange, organize, store, and search information. The database is designed to allow you to approach the topics in a wide variety of ways.

After publishing a relatively brief static timeline in my 2002 printed book Origins of Cyberspace, and a somewhat expanded version in my 2005 printed book, From Gutenberg to the Internet, I continued expanding the timeline on historyofscience.com. Like the printed versions, the first web version was a relatively simple chronological listing on a series of pages with different date ranges. It grew to about a thousand entries, mostly with very brief notes. In September 2008, after Jessica Gore provided an "administration program," I began to building what you see now, which is a work in progress. Once the scope of the database had reached as far back as prehistory, and, with its numerous themes and searchability, had reached a level of interactivity well beyond a timeline, I renamed it From Cave Paintings to the Internet, and called it an interactive database. Along with the database I continued to draft introductory material from which these remarks evolved. The Outline View was installed in January 2010. About September 2010 I began writing the interpretive works in progress found under the Narrative and Analysis tab. On February 2, 2012 the database had 3460 entries, virtually all of which had multiple links to online references. Some entries incorporated images, and a few linked to video and sound. In addition to the standard keyword search, there were eighty-five themes by which the database could be reviewed, allowing users to approach the information from many different perspectives. On February 8, 2011 From Cave Paintings to the Internet moved to its own domain at historyofinformation.com, and we changed its subtitle from A Chronological and Thematic Database to Chronological and Thematic Studies on the History of Information and Media. The Dr. Suess-like mascot of the domain is the enigmatic cave drawing called The Sorcerer in the Trois-Freres cave in France, and dated circa 12,000 BCE. The version used is that drawn and made famous by the historian of prehistoric art, Henri Breuil. The meaning of this image has been a topic of speculation since its discovery in 1912-14. Perhaps The Sorcercer serves to remind us that, in spite of the many advances documented in this project, fundamental expressions remain mysterious. 1 It may be impossible to put ourselves in the mindset of prehistoric man without projecting our worldview. One way to understand prehistoric expressions is to study the rituals of present stone-age peoples such as Aborigines (Indigenous Australians), who also create rock paintings. A study that reviews prior or alternative theories and suggests that cave images were derived from trance and magic in shamanistic ritual is the beautifully illustrated book by Jean Clottes and David Lewis-Williams, The Shamans of Prehistory. Trance and Magic in the Painted Caves. Text by Jean Clottes, translated from the French by Sophie Hawkes (1996).

Though this project began in printed form, and much of its information derives from books, it has evolved into this dynamic and interactive form far different from the codex. 2For a definition of codex, and a discussion of the transition from the manuscript roll to the codex format of manuscript and printed books, see Section 2.B. The Transition from the Roll to the Codex under the "Narrative and Analysis" Tab. This distinctive and evolving form combines features of traditional reference books, such as narratives, bibliographical references, and descriptive annotations, with the advantages of links to additional information, including digital books, articles, images, newsgroups, and videos online, searchability through pre-assigned themes or random keywords, aspects of blogging, and a range, scope and flexibility that would be impossible without the Internet. In contrast to the static printed codex, which can only be revised infrequently, I am continuing to expand, revise, and improve this database, and my narrative and analysis, as frequently as time permits.

You will find links to themes at the end of each entry. If you click on a theme after an entry you will see a timeline based on that theme alone. You can, of course, access the database by era, and you can switch back and forth between eras and themes. By following certain themes in the database you can trace the development of specific media; following others may help you trace interrelationships between media, or help you approach the history of information from other viewpoints.

Using the search box in the upper right corner of each screen you can search the database by any keyword, name, phrase or search combination. The keyword search may be the most efficient way to locate specific information. With the pull-down menu to the right of the search box at the advanced search screen you can adjust the search to find ANY word, to find ALL words, or to find EXACT phrase. To determine which database entries mention a specific year type that year number in quotation marks in the search box.

In order to follow the development of concepts or technologies I sometimes define themes loosely, and in order to make some themes more accessible to historical treatment I also combine related themes. For example, I combined Internet and Networking in order to trace this theme back to the first road networks in the ancient world, to railroads, to the telegraph lines that followed railroad lines, to telephone networks, up the network of networks that is the Internet. I also combined Social Media and Wikis to show a longer history for both topics. By January 2012 I felt that eBooks had become a significant enough factor in publishing, and that sufficient information about them had accumulated in the database to add a new theme for eBook / Digital Book History. Occasionally an entry may be accidentally indexed to an inappropriate theme. If you notice such a mistake please email me.

Some eras and themes contain many entries, making reviewing them time-consuming. To make them more readily accessible, and to make comparisons more practical, we have developed the Outline View. With this tool you can review the headlines for each entry in an era or theme in chronological order, and can click through to the full entry when interested. By opening additional outline views in separate windows you can compare eras and themes.

Although this is my individual project, I could not accomplish it without thousands of physical books on the history of information in my growing personal library, access to digital books and journal articles, and the work of countless contributors to websites. Though this project documents the history of information in all its forms, I remain an exponent of the well-edited and hopefully also well-produced physical book. Unless otherwise stated or linked, references to scholarly works or secondary sources in my entries are from physical books, usually in my possession. Sometimes I also have the primary work involved, or a physical facsimile of it, or I had the primary work in my possession temporarily as a dealer in rare books and manuscripts. Occasionally I consult physical books in institutional libraries, but efficiency requires that I maintain most of the references I need in my possession or have access to them on the Internet. I also benefit from online discussions on the exlibris electronic discussion list of the Rare Book and Manuscript Section (RBMS) of the Association of College Research Libraries (ACRL). To the more than 100,000 contributors to the Wikipedia I am especially grateful. Throughout the database users will find many quotations from, and innumerable hyperlinks to, the Wikipedia and a myriad of other websites. After the Wikipedia the source I cite most frequently is The New York Times. As with quotations from printed books, when I quote from a website I do not include footnotes within the web page, such as the considerable number of footnotes that may be found in certain Wikipedia articles. These footnotes can, of course, be accessed by clicking on the link. Conversely, when I quote from physical or digital books I sometimes add links when I feel that they may be useful, and I have also been known to add links to quotations I take from websites. I give dates of access for sites from which I have taken quotations both as a reference point for the date the database entry was written or revised, and to provide a means of finding the information in the Internet Archive if the site from which the quotation was taken closes or changes.

From the standpoint of selecting sources for links the Wikipedia and The New York Times have the advantage of presumed longevity. As we all know, websites frequently come and go, and it is time-consuming to have to replace dead links in a project as complex as this. But within the millions of articles in the Wikipedia articles sometimes are divided or moved, making old links disfunctional. I would appreciate your reporting broken or inaccurate links to any source when you find them in the database. That the Wikipedia is the product of so many contributors, and is of uneven quality, sometimes raises concern among scholars. This caution should be applied to many sources of information, in print and online. While I am careful to cite my sources accurately, in order to build a database of this scope I work under the assumption that not all of the information or references can be verified. Paraphrasing a statement made by the Renaissance scholar-printer Aldus Manutius in his preface to his edition of Theocritus (1495/96), I believe that publishing “something is better than nothing,” and that my primary task is to set down the information in useful form, to be improved later, if possible. I also believe that a published text may find many correctors, with the difference that the Internet compounds the problem by the speed at which it spreads true or false information. Whenever I find inaccuracies in From Cave Paintings to the Internet I correct them. Please report errors that you find.

For this project I am using an abbreviated form of bibliographic citation, but there should be sufficient detail to enable users to identify the sources. Those familiar with the classic reference book by Carter and Muir, Printing and the Mind of Man (1967), may notice citations of that work occasionally in the database. Published in the print-centric world that existed at the beginning of my antiquarian bookselling career, Printing and the Mind of Man was highly influential on my development as a bookseller and bibliographer. At one time I had the ambition to revise that work or to write a similar book from a more “modern” perspective. Instead of doing that, some entries in the database that correspond to entries in Printing and the Mind of Man reflect my “take” on Carter and Muir's choices of texts influential on the development of Western Civilization. Other database entries, which concern works influential on both Eastern and Western civilization in manuscript, print or digital form, might be viewed as alternative selections, expansions or updates of the concept originally developed in the historic and highly influential Printing and the Mind of Man exhibition (1963) and books. Because this is an open-ended database, unconstrained by the physical limitations of an exhibition or printed book, my choices range widely.

As his schedule permits, my son Max is adding images to entries. When you see “view larger” after a caption, clicking on the image will bring up a larger version, and if you then click on the larger version, so may see a version of the image that is larger still. Sometimes clicking on an uncaptioned image will have the same result. From time to time I comment on an image within an annotation.

Increasingly, digital facsimiles of manuscripts and rare books are being made available online. Whenever I am aware of a digital facsimile or a digital edition of an item discussed I provide a link to it. Of course, facsimiles can never be truly identical to the original, and there are many reasons why consulting the original should be preferred. But for the casual student, or for the many without access to the original manuscript or printing, a facsimile may provide an acceptable substitute. The scholar’s challenge to is to know when the original--not just a facsimile--must be consulted.

It should be obvious that the database can reflect only an outline of selected examples on the topics to which it refers, and that this outline will always be more or less incomplete. Though the database was designed to be accessed from many different viewpoints, in its selection of information, and in the way the information is presented, the database reflects my approach to the topics concerned. Considering the range of topics covered and the span of time involved, this individual approach may remain both its strength and its limitations. It is my pleasure to create and share this growing interactive record of my ongoing voyage through the history of information and media. Your comments are welcome. Bon voyage!

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Resources for Book and Media History

Book history has become an increasingly well established field of academic research. For the formal study of book history in an increasingly digital world we are fortunate to have a selection of educational programs including the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia, and the newer Rare Books and Special Collections program at the Palmer School at Long Island University, the Rare Books and Manuscripts Librarianship Specialization at the School of Library and Information Science at Indiana University Bloomington, the California Rare Book School at UCLA, the Watts Program for the History of the Book at Brown University, and the Center for the Study of Books and Media at Princeton. At the University of Saskatchewan there is an innovative program and website on The History and Future of the Book. Other programs include The Centre for the Study of the Book at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, the Center for Manuscript and Print Studies at the University of London, The Centre for the History of the Book at the University of Edinburgh, and the Institut d'Histoire du Livre, at the Musée de l’Imprimerie de Lyon, France. The Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing (SHARP) has over 1000 members in over 20 countries, including professors of literature, historians, librarians, publishing professionals, sociologists, bibliophiles, classicists, booksellers, art historians, reading instructors, and independent scholars. Its website provides an invaluable collection of links related to book history.

The Reading Experience Database (RED), 1450-1945 contains valuable listings of Selected Works on the History and Practice of Reading, Selected Works on Theories of Reading, and Reading in Wartime. Supporting scholarship on the history of books, printing, and libraries, Book History Online, the worldwide database for scholarship on the history of the book, was established in 1997 at the Koninklijke Bibliotheek in Copenhagen. This database uses digital technology as a means of organizing and communicating information on many aspects of the history of physical information. A more specialized online resource is the Schoenberg Database of Manuscripts at the University of Pennsylvania. This contains the descriptions of more than 60,000 medieval manuscripts produced before 1600. Other notable digital resources concerning medieval manuscripts and libraries include the Pecia website and blog. For fifteenth century printing there is the Incunabula Short Title Catalogue maintained by the British Library. Currently it lists just under 30,000 items. This and the English Short Title Catalogue, also maintained by the British Library, which lists over 460,000 items published in the British Isles and America between 1473 and 1800, represent bibliographical reference works far more widely accessible, more comprehensive, and more easily searched than they could be in printed form.

For the history and traditions of book collecting, and the ongoing process of forming and maintaining and preserving libraries of rare books and manuscripts, there are numerous clubs and societies, of which The Grolier Club of New York is the most distinguished in the United States. The Fellowship of American Bibliophilic Societies links the different American and Canadian book collecting clubs. A manuscript collector and dealer’s group is The Manuscript Society. Because of long and illustrious historical tradition of physical information there are hundreds, and perhaps thousands of institutional libraries around the world that hold rare books and manuscripts. There are also numerous museums and institutional libraries that hold recorded information prior to the codex, such as stone inscriptions, cuneiform tablets, and papyrus rolls.

In spite of the relative fragility of papyrus, the Egyptian desert provided a comparatively hospitable environment for their preservation. As a result of extensive archaeological research mainly since the 1890s, there are about 45,000 papyri in six institutional libraries and museums in the United States, and numerous papyri preserved in other countries. It has been estimated that there are about 500,000 unpublished papyri. Bagnall, Early Christian Books in Egypt (2009), 17 cites a figure "in the range of 1 million to 1.5 million" for the "total of known numbers of papyri in all collections." Of course, many papyri are fragmentary. The Tebtunis Papyri, a collection of more than 30,000 papyrus fragments preserved at The Bancroft Library at the University of California at Berkeley, represent the largest collection of papyrus texts in the Americas. Twenty-one institutions cooperate in development of the Advanced Papyrological Information System (APIS), a collections-based repository hosting information about and images of papyrological materials, such as papryi, ostraca, and wood tablets, located in collections around the world. (This section was last revised on June 2, 2011.)

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Resources for the History of Computing, Digital Information, and Humanities Computing

Organizations and institutions concerning the history of computing and the Internet are far more limited in number. Some of the most significant are the Charles Babbage Institute in Minneapolis, the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, the Science Museum in London, and the IEEE Computer Society. Since 1976 the IEEE has published IEEE Annals of the History of Computing. For the history of media--film, radio, and television-- there is the International Association for Media and History. For the history of information management and information science there are various useful websites such as that of Professor Michael Buckland.

For humanities computing or digital humanities there are Interdisciplinary Sciences Reviews edited by Willard McCarty, the Humanist Discussion Group, “an international online seminar on humanities computing and the digital humanities” also edited by McCarty, and The Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations.

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