- May 2024
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docdrop.org docdrop.org
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Lacy, Tim. The Dream of a Democratic Culture: Mortimer J. Adler and the Great Books Idea. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. https://amzn.to/3R2rCox.
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- Jan 2024
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danallosso.substack.com danallosso.substack.com
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read [[Dan Allosso]] in Actual Books
Sometimes a physical copy of a book gives one information not contained in digital scans. Allosso provides the example of Charles Knowlton's book The Fruits of Philosophy which touched on abortion and was published as a tiny hand-held book which would have made it easy to pass from person to person more discretely for its time period.
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- Dec 2023
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Local file Local file
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Adler & Hutchinson's Great Books of the Western World was an encyclopedia-based attempt to focus society on a shared history as their common ground. H. G. Wells in his World Encyclopedia thesis attempts to forge a new "moving" common ground based on newly evolving knowledge based on distilling truth out of science. Shared history is obviously much easier to dispense and spread about compared to constantly keeping a growing population up to date with the forefront of science.
How could one carefully compose and juxtapose the two to have a stronger combined effect?
How could one distribute the effects evenly?
What does the statistical mechanics for knowledge management look like at the level of societies and nations?
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- Nov 2023
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danallosso.substack.com danallosso.substack.com
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Chapter 39 of Zoonomia, “On Generation,” presents Erasmus’ ideas on competition, extinction, and how “different fibrils or molecules are detached from…the parent…to form” the child. The Temple of Nature goes even farther, declaring “all vegetables and animals now existing were originally derived from the smallest microscopic ones, formed by spontaneous vitality” in ancient oceans.
Interesting to contemplate the evolution of the idea of evolution through the Darwin family.
Charles would obviously have read his grandfather's book, but it also bears noting that he also had access to his grandfather's commonplace book (and likely his other papers).
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- Dec 2022
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Local file Local file
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important works like Galen’s On Demonstration, Theophrastus’ OnMines and Aristarchus’ treatise on heliocentric theory (which mighthave changed the course of astronomy dramatically if it hadsurvived) all slipped through the cracks of time.
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Moller, Violet. The Map of Knowledge: A Thousand-Year History of How Classical Ideas Were Lost and Found. 1st ed. New York: Doubleday, 2019. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/546484/the-map-of-knowledge-by-violet-moller/.
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- Jun 2022
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hcommons.org hcommons.org
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https://hcommons.org/deposits/item/hc:33585/
See also Wiki created in combination with this course: https://digitalbookhistory.com/culturesofthebook/Main_Page
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digitalbookhistory.com digitalbookhistory.com
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https://digitalbookhistory.com/culturesofthebook/Main_Page
<small><cite class='h-cite via'>ᔥ <span class='p-author h-card'> whitney trettien </span> in whitney trettien on Twitter: "Curious about the development of different book technologies? The students in my "Cultures of the Book" seminar last semester made a wiki for you! Each entry is a short essay that uses examples from @upennlib. Open & free to use/remix: https://t.co/XN0C51MLrv" / Twitter (<time class='dt-published'>06/20/2022 01:10:21</time>)</cite></small>
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- May 2022
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scolarcardiff.wordpress.com scolarcardiff.wordpress.com
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en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_book
Found looking for information about the tradition of birthday books.
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- Apr 2022
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In this way the pressures of the multitude and diversity of authorita-tive opinion, already articulated in the previous century by Peter Abelard (1079–1142), were heightened by the development of reference books, from indexes and concordances that made originalia searchable and to the large compilations that excerpted and summarized from diverse sources.
Prior to the flourishing of reference materials, Peter Abelard (1079-1142) had articulated the idea of "the multitude and diversity of authoritative opinion" to be found in available material. How was one to decide which authority to believe in a time before the scientific method?
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- Feb 2022
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pennmaterialtexts.org pennmaterialtexts.org
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https://pennmaterialtexts.org/homepage
How awesome looking is this? Note the regular online meetings/presentations and the backlog of videos on their YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8Ng6px3fgc4Yjw-en1GcsA
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Indeed, the Jose-phinian card index owes its continued use to the failure to achieve a bound
catalog, until a successor card catalog comes along in 1848. Only the<br /> absence of a bound repertory allows the paper slip aggregate to answer all inquiries about a book ’ s whereabouts after 1781. Thus, a failed undertaking tacitly turns into a success story.
The Josephinian card index was created, in part on the ideas of Konrad Gessner's slip method, by accumulating slips which could be rearranged and then copied down permanently. While there was the chance that the original cards could be disordered, the fact that the approximately 300,000 cards in 205 small boxes were estimated to fill 50 to 60 folio volumes with time and expense to print it dissuaded the creation of a long desired compiled book of books. These problems along with the fact that new books being added later was sure to only compound problems of having a single reference. This failure to have a bound catalog of books unwittingly resulted in the success of the index card catalog.
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- Nov 2021
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site.pennpress.org site.pennpress.org
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This looks interesting with respect to the flows of the history of commonplace books.
Making the Miscellany: Poetry, Print, and the History of the Book in Early Modern England by Megan Heffernan
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- Sep 2021
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www.library.upenn.edu www.library.upenn.eduLoss1
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How have chance survivals shaped literary and linguistic canons? How might the topography of the field appear differently had certain prized unica not survived? What are the ways in which authors, compilers, scribes, and scholars have dealt with lacunary exemplaria? How do longstanding and emergent methodologies and disciplines—analysis of catalogs of dispersed libraries, reverse engineering of ur-texts and lost prototypes, digital reconstructions of codices dispersi, digital humanities. and cultural heritage preservation, and trauma studies to name a few,—serve to reveal the extent of disappearance? How can ideologically-driven biblioclasm or the destruction wrought by armed conflicts -- sometimes occurring within living memory -- be assessed objectively yet serve as the basis for protection of cultural heritage in the present? In all cases, losses are not solely material: they can be psychological, social, digital, linguistic, spiritual, professional. Is mournful resignation the only response to these gaps, or can such sentiments be harnessed to further knowledge, understanding, and preservation moving forward?
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- Aug 2021
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www.dur.ac.uk www.dur.ac.uk
- Jul 2021
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hackaday.com hackaday.com
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https://hackaday.com/2019/06/18/before-computers-notched-card-databases/
Originally suggested by Alan Levine. Some interesting specific examples here, but I've been aware of the concept for a while.
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- May 2021
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newrepublic.com newrepublic.com
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To extract knowledge successfully from reading was to “deflower” a book, as explained by the preface to the twelfth-century Libri deflorationum.
Libri deflorationum
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whitneyannetrettien.com whitneyannetrettien.comWhiki1
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This has to be one of the baddest-ass things I've seen in months. I wish more people had public-facing commonplace books like this!
Bonus points that Whitney calls it a Whiki! :)
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- Feb 2021
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www.nybooks.com www.nybooks.com
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Foucault probably offers the most helpful theoretical approach. His “archaeology of knowledge” suggests a way to study texts as sites that bear the marks of epistemological activity, and it has the advantage of doing justice to the social dimension of thought.
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