A History of Information Storage and Retrieval - Hardcover

Stockwell, Foster

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0786408405 ISBN 13: 9780786408405

Publisher: McFarland Publishing, 2000

Synopsis

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. Fully indexed.

About this title

About the Author:

Foster Stockwell is a publishing consultant for Chinese publishers and authors. Also the author of the Encyclopedia of American Communes, 1663-1963 (1998, $55), he lives in Des Moines, Washington.

From Library Journal:

The acquisition and storage of knowledge always has been a key element in the development of human society. Stockwell, a publishing consultant for Chinese publishers and author of Encyclopedia of American Communes 1663-1963, gives us a concise overview of how the human race has collected, stored, and shared knowledge. At its core is the history of the encyclopedia, but on the edges it is much more. In the first chapter Stockwell discusses the limitations of human memory. He points out that the human brain is in a state of constant deterioration, which makes memory a poor instrument for the storage and retrieval of precise information. As Stockwell puts it, "knowledge has to be transmitted by deteriorating old minds to deteriorating young ones." He devotes the rest of the text to tracing the history of the storage of knowledge from earliest oral traditions to today's computers. He also discusses the collecting of books, the organization of knowledge, the uses and misuses of knowledge, education, the Bible, encyclopedias, the development of libraries, and the "Strange History of the Britannica." This is a very concise and readable book that hits upon the high points of the history of recorded knowledge how it is stored and how it is shared. Recommended for all library science collections. Tim Daniels, Asheville-Buncombe Lib. Syst., NC
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: McFarland Publishing
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0786408405
• ISBN 13: 9780786408405
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 200