Category Archives: Knowledge compilations
Taxonomies of Knowledge, 1751 and 1780
‘Genealogical distribution of the arts and sciences’ by Chrétien Frederic Guillaume Roth from Encyclopédie (1780) A remarkable tree featured as a foldout frontispiece in a later 1780 edition of the French Encyclopédie by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert, … Continue reading
Posted in classification, Knowledge compilations
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Wikipedia Launched
Today in 2001, Wikipedia was launched. Since its creation, Wikipedia has grown rapidly into one of the largest reference websites. As of November 2013, Wikipedia was ranked by comScore as the 8th most popular web destination in the U.S. with more than … Continue reading
Why We Like Lists?
From Spiegel Interview with Umberto Eco Eco: At first, we think that a list is primitive and typical of very early cultures, which had no exact concept of the universe and were therefore limited to listing the characteristics they could name. But, … Continue reading
The Encyclopedia of Life Launched
Today in 2008, the Encyclopedia of Life was launched. From the Website: “The Encyclopedia will be an online reference and database on all 1.9 million species currently known to science and will stay current by capturing information on newly discovered and formally described … Continue reading
Why Does Timbuktu Matter?
“Timbuktu sits on the edge of Saharan desert. It was a trading entrepôt in the age when the camel was the only means of transport and it became a centre of commerce in the region; trade in books come to … Continue reading
Posted in Knowledge compilations, Libraries, Preservation
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Wikipedia Launched
Today in 2001, Wikipedia was launched. Since its creation, Wikipedia has grown rapidly into one of the largest reference websites, attracting around 470 million unique visitors monthly in 2012. Today, there are more than 77,000 active contributors working on over 22,000,000 articles in … Continue reading
Posted in Digitization, Education, Knowledge compilations
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On the History of Information
Ann Blair in Salon: “The history of information has developed especially in the last 10 years. It is a subset of intellectual and cultural history, which is a subset of general history. “Information” today typically refers to all the stuff … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Information Overload, Knowledge compilations, Quotes
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Sic transit gloria mundi
The first edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica was published in 1768 in Edinburgh, Scotland. In the Preface to the Encyclopaedia, William Smellie, the 28-year-old editor (and author of many of the entries), expressed his hope that this new kind of encyclopaedia or … Continue reading
Posted in Dead media, Knowledge compilations, Print
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Earliest Surviving Dated Printed Book
Today in 868, The Diamond Sutra was published in China. The copy in the British Library is “the world’s earliest complete survival of a dated printed book.”
The Story of Information 