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A Social History of Books and Libraries from Cuneiform to Bytes

A Social History of Books and Libraries from Cuneiform to Bytes
Author: Patrick M. Valentine
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Total Pages: 223
Release: 2012-09-27
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0810885719
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While the importance of writing has often been recognized, the role of books and especially that of libraries has just as often been slighted. Knowledge, once generated, has to be communicated, preserved, and accessible. Books in their varying formats—from clay tablets to scrolls and manuscripts to pixels—have been instrumental in spreading knowledge, although relatively little attention has been given to the story of books themselves. A Social History of Books and Libraries from Cuneiform to Bytes traces the roles of books and libraries throughout recorded history and explores their social and cultural importance within differing societies and changing times. It presents the history of books from clay tablets to e-books and the history of libraries, whether built of bricks or bytes. Following an introduction that sets the theoretical basis for the historical importance of books and libraries, chapters alternate between the history of the book and the history of libraries. Included within the chapters are short excursions on some particular development, such as book emblems or cataloging. Case studies are given as thematic illustrations of libraries everywhere. Patrick M. Valentine argues that social and cultural forces have been more influential in determining the nature and status of information, books, and libraries than has technology. But A Social History of Books and Libraries is far from a jeremiad against technology; rather it presents history within the subtle yet shifting context of time and place. Although written primarily for librarians and library students, it will also be of interest to a wider audience of scholars and those interested in books, libraries, and cultural history.

The Library

The Library
Author: Arthur der Weduwen
Publisher: Profile Books
Total Pages: 425
Release: 2021-10-14
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1788163443
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LONGLISTED FOR THE HISTORICAL WRITERS' ASSOCIATION NON-FICTION CROWN A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 'A sweeping, absorbing history, deeply researched, of that extraordinary and enduring phenomenon: the library' Richard Ovenden, author of Burning the Books: A History of Knowledge under Attack Famed across the known world, jealously guarded by private collectors, built up over centuries, destroyed in a single day, ornamented with gold leaf and frescoes or filled with bean bags and children's drawings - the history of the library is rich, varied and stuffed full of incident. In this, the first major history of its kind, Andrew Pettegree and Arthur der Weduwen explore the contested and dramatic history of the library, from the famous collections of the ancient world to the embattled public resources we cherish today. Along the way, they introduce us to the antiquarians and philanthropists who shaped the world's great collections, trace the rise and fall of fashions and tastes, and reveal the high crimes and misdemeanours committed in pursuit of rare and valuable manuscripts.

Books on Fire

Books on Fire
Author: Lucien X. Polastron
Publisher: Lucien X. POLASTRON
Total Pages: 396
Release: 2007-08-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781594771675
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Almost as old as the idea of the library is the urge to destroy it. Author Lucien X. Polastron traces the history of this destruction, examining the causes for these disasters, the treasures that have been lost, and where the surviving books, if any, have ended up. Books on Fire received the 2004 Societe des Gens de Lettres Prize for Nonfiction/History in Paris.

Burning the Books

Burning the Books
Author: Richard Ovenden
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2020-10-13
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0674241207
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The director of the famed Bodleian Libraries at Oxford narrates the global history of the willful destruction—and surprising survival—of recorded knowledge over the past three millennia. Libraries and archives have been attacked since ancient times but have been especially threatened in the modern era. Today the knowledge they safeguard faces purposeful destruction and willful neglect; deprived of funding, libraries are fighting for their very existence. Burning the Books recounts the history that brought us to this point. Richard Ovenden describes the deliberate destruction of knowledge held in libraries and archives from ancient Alexandria to contemporary Sarajevo, from smashed Assyrian tablets in Iraq to the destroyed immigration documents of the UK Windrush generation. He examines both the motivations for these acts—political, religious, and cultural—and the broader themes that shape this history. He also looks at attempts to prevent and mitigate attacks on knowledge, exploring the efforts of librarians and archivists to preserve information, often risking their own lives in the process. More than simply repositories for knowledge, libraries and archives inspire and inform citizens. In preserving notions of statehood recorded in such historical documents as the Declaration of Independence, libraries support the state itself. By preserving records of citizenship and records of the rights of citizens as enshrined in legal documents such as the Magna Carta and the decisions of the US Supreme Court, they support the rule of law. In Burning the Books, Ovenden takes a polemical stance on the social and political importance of the conservation and protection of knowledge, challenging governments in particular, but also society as a whole, to improve public policy and funding for these essential institutions.

Ancient Libraries

Ancient Libraries
Author: Jason König
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 501
Release: 2013-04-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107244587
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The circulation of books was the motor of classical civilization. However, books were both expensive and rare, and so libraries - private and public, royal and civic - played key roles in articulating intellectual life. This collection, written by an international team of scholars, presents a fundamental reassessment of how ancient libraries came into being, how they were organized and how they were used. Drawing on papyrology and archaeology, and on accounts written by those who read and wrote in them, it presents new research on reading cultures, on book collecting and on the origins of monumental library buildings. Many of the traditional stories told about ancient libraries are challenged. Few were really enormous, none were designed as research centres, and occasional conflagrations do not explain the loss of most ancient texts. But the central place of libraries in Greco-Roman culture emerges more clearly than ever.

Inside Roman Libraries

Inside Roman Libraries
Author: George W. Houston
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 349
Release: 2014
Genre: History
ISBN: 1469617803
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Inside Roman Libraries: Book Collections and Their Management in Antiquity

A History of Medical Libraries and Medical Librarianship

A History of Medical Libraries and Medical Librarianship
Author: Michael R. Kronenfeld
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 365
Release: 2021-02-11
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1538118823
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A History of Medical Libraries and Librarianship in the United States: From John Shaw Billingsto the Digital Era presents a history of the profession from the beginnings of the Army Surgeon General’s Library in 1836 to today’s era of the digital health sciences library. The purpose of this book is not only to make this history available to the profession’s practitioners, but also to provide context as medical librarians and libraries enter a new age in their history as the digital information environment has undercut the medical library’s previous role as the depository of the print based KBI/information base. The book divides the profession’s history is divided into seven eras: 1. The Era of the Library of the Office of the Army Surgeon General and John Shaw Billings – 1836 – 1898 2. The Era of the Gentleman Physician Librarian – 1898 to 1945 3. The Era of the Development of the Clinical Research Infrastructure (NIH), the Rapid Expansion in Funded and Published Clinical Research and the Emergence of Medical Librarianship as a Profession – 1945 – 1962 4. The Era of the Development of the National Library of Medicine, Online digital Subject Searching (Medline) and the Creation of the National Health Science Library Infrastructure– 1962 – 1975 5. The Medline Era – A Golden Age for Medical Libraries – 1975 – 1995 6. The Era of Universal Access to Information and the Transition from Paper to Digitally Based Medical Libraries – 1995 – 2015 7. The Era of the Digital Health Sciences Library – 2015 – Each era is reviewed through discussing the developments in the field and the factors which drove those developments. The book will provide current and future medical librarians and information specialists an understanding of the development of their profession and some insights into its future.

Part of Our Lives

Part of Our Lives
Author: Wayne A. Wiegand
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 345
Release: 2015
Genre: History
ISBN: 0190248009
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Challenges conventional thinking and top-down definitions, instead drawing on the library user's perspective to argue that the public library's most important function is providing commonplace reading materials and public space. Challenges a professional ethos about public libraries and their responsibilities to fight censorship and defend intellectual freedom. Demonstrates that the American public library has been (with some notable exceptions) a place that welcomed newcomers, accepted diversity, and constructed community since the end of the 19th century. Shows how stories that cultural authorities have traditionally disparaged- i.e. books that are not "serious"- have often been transformative for public library users.

The Library Book

The Library Book
Author: Susan Orlean
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2019-10-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1476740194
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Susan Orlean’s bestseller and New York Times Notable Book is “a sheer delight…as rich in insight and as varied as the treasures contained on the shelves in any local library” (USA TODAY)—a dazzling love letter to a beloved institution and an investigation into one of its greatest mysteries. “Everybody who loves books should check out The Library Book” (The Washington Post). On the morning of April 28, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. The fire was disastrous: it reached two thousand degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished, it had consumed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more. Investigators descended on the scene, but more than thirty years later, the mystery remains: Did someone purposefully set fire to the library—and if so, who? Weaving her lifelong love of books and reading into an investigation of the fire, award-winning New Yorker reporter and New York Times bestselling author Susan Orlean delivers a “delightful…reflection on the past, present, and future of libraries in America” (New York magazine) that manages to tell the broader story of libraries and librarians in a way that has never been done before. In the “exquisitely written, consistently entertaining” (The New York Times) The Library Book, Orlean chronicles the LAPL fire and its aftermath to showcase the larger, crucial role that libraries play in our lives; delves into the evolution of libraries; brings each department of the library to vivid life; studies arson and attempts to burn a copy of a book herself; and reexamines the case of Harry Peak, the blond-haired actor long suspected of setting fire to the LAPL more than thirty years ago. “A book lover’s dream…an ambitiously researched, elegantly written book that serves as a portal into a place of history, drama, culture, and stories” (Star Tribune, Minneapolis), Susan Orlean’s thrilling journey through the stacks reveals how these beloved institutions provide much more than just books—and why they remain an essential part of the heart, mind, and soul of our country.

A Companion to the History of the Book

A Companion to the History of the Book
Author: Simon Eliot
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 617
Release: 2011-08-24
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1444356585
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A COMPANION TO THE HISTORY OF THE BOOK A COMPANION TO THE HISTORY OF THE BOOK Edited by Simon Eliot and Jonathan Rose “As a stimulating overview of the multidimensional present state of the field, the Companion has no peer.” Choice “If you want to understand how cultures come into being, endure, and change, then you need to come to terms with the rich and often surprising history Of the book ... Eliot and Rose have done a fine job. Their volume can be heartily recommended. “ Adrian Johns, Technology and Culture From the early Sumerian clay tablet through to the emergence of the electronic text, this Companion provides a continuous and coherent account of the history of the book. A team of expert contributors draws on the latest research in order to offer a cogent, transcontinental narrative. Many of them use illustrative examples and case studies of well-known texts, conveying the excitement surrounding this rapidly developing field. The Companion is organized around four distinct approaches to the history of the book. First, it introduces the variety of methods used by book historians and allied specialists, from the long-established discipline of bibliography to newer IT-based approaches. Next, it provides a broad chronological survey of the forms and content of texts. The third section situates the book in the context of text culture as a whole, while the final section addresses broader issues, such as literacy, copyright, and the future of the book. Contributors to this volume: Michael Albin, Martin Andrews, Rob Banham, Megan L Benton, Michelle P. Brown, Marie-Frangoise Cachin, Hortensia Calvo, Charles Chadwyck-Healey, M. T. Clanchy, Stephen Colclough, Patricia Crain, J. S. Edgren, Simon Eliot, John Feather, David Finkelstein, David Greetham, Robert A. Gross, Deana Heath, Lotte Hellinga, T. H. Howard-Hill, Peter Kornicki, Beth Luey, Paul Luna, Russell L. Martin Ill, Jean-Yves Mollier, Angus Phillips, Eleanor Robson, Cornelia Roemer, Jonathan Rose, Emile G. L Schrijver, David J. Shaw, Graham Shaw, Claire Squires, Rietje van Vliet, James Wald, Rowan Watson, Alexis Weedon, Adriaan van der Weel, Wayne A. Wiegand, Eva Hemmungs Wirtén.