4 Matching Annotations
  1. Jun 2022
    1. when Britannica conducted followup research on whether or not the books were actually being read, they found that buyers who really read the books were the exception. The two largest sub-categories among buyers who were more likely to have read the books were housewives and men trained in some sort of technical profession.

      Research by Britannica (source?) indicated that the Great Books of the Western World sold well but were not often read.

      Link to: A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking Owen Gingerich Copernicus

  2. Apr 2022
    1. An initial stage of annotation might be provided bya professional reader hired to add aids to reading for the owner, including espe-cially mnemonic or meditative aids, or enhancements to the layout, but alsooccasionally self-reflexive or potentially dissenting observations.24 A successionof owner-readers could then add further corrections and comments.

      Stages of annotation in the medieval period


      When is Hypothes.is going to branch out into the business of professional readers to add aids to texts?! :)

      Link this to the professional summary industry that reads books and summarizes them for busy executives

      Link this to the annotations studied by Owen Gingerich in The Book Nobody Read.

  3. Oct 2020
    1. What David told me was his energy, enthusiasm in the class was at a much higher level with the OER approach. Sure we choose the polished “professional” textbook because of its assumed high standards, quality etc, but then its a more passive relationship a teacher has with it. I make the comparison to growing and/or making your own food versus having it prepared or taking it out of a package. Having produced our own food means we know everything about it from top to bottom, and the pride in doing that has to make the whole experience much more energized.

      As I read both this post and this comment from Alan, I can't help but think again about scholars in the 14th century who taught students. It was more typical of the time that students were "forced" to chose their own textbooks--typically there were fewer, and at the advent of the printing press they were significantly higher in price. As a result students had to spend more time and attention, as Robin indicates here, to come up with useful things.

      Even in this period students often annotated their books, which often got passed on to other students and even professors which helped future generations. So really, we're not reinventing the wheel here, we're just doing it anew with new technology that makes doing it all the easier.

      As a reference, I'll suggest folks interested in this area read Owen Gingerich's The Book Nobody Read.

  4. Jun 2019
  5. mitpressonpubpub.mitpress.mit.edu mitpressonpubpub.mitpress.mit.edu
    1. That which is fit to print - be it the news, or social commentary, or religious doctrine - has for centuries been fit for annotation, too.

      Other great examples include teaching and scientific progress. Owen Gingerich details annotations in all the extant copies of Copernicus in his text The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus. There it seemed obvious that the moving state-of-the art of science and teaching was reflected in the annotations made by professors who handed those annotations down to students who also copied them into their textbooks.