A History of Information Storage and Retrieval

Description

Throughout history, humans have sought ways not only to acquire but to preserve knowledge. From when to plant crops to who begat whom, even the earliest people worked to gather and store information. Today, computers and other technologies have almost completely changed the world of information access and storage. This history traces the development of knowledge-collecting from early humans, whose minds served as repositories of culture and lore, through the first libraries and encyclopedias, to the many advances of the twentieth century. Ironically it is with these latest advances that the preservation of knowledge has foundered.For example, CD-ROMs can last no doubt for decades - but the software programs that run them will not, because they are constantly being upgraded. Both well-known and obscure pieces of the information story are explored in this work. From Diderot's encyclopedia, to anonymous librarians of the ancient world, the people who created information storage systems and the systems themselves are all presented. It is fully indexed. Cover Contents Preface 1 The Loss of Knowledge 2 The Greeks Had a Word for It 3 Gifts from Asia 4 The Early Accumulation of Books 5 Medieval Scholarship 6 The Printing Revolution6 The Printing Revolution 7 The Uses and Abuses of the Bible 8 Insight, Paradigms, and Prejudice 9 Bacon and the New Outlook 10 Diderot Banned 11 Organizing Knowledge 12 Coleridge, Encyclopedist of the Romantic Movement 13 The Strange History of the Britannica 14 Modern Encyclopedias Worldwide 15 Modern American Encyclopedias 16 The Growth of Libraries 17 The Complexity of Learning 18 Entering the Computer Age 19 The New World of Hypertext 20 Using the Great Electronic Encyclopedia Appendix: General Encyclopedias Published in English Bibliography Index