tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56995802397111808812009-10-24T08:12:40.171-07:00Jeremy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04611636477208129385noreply@blogger.comBlogger37125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5699580239711180881.post-88607020131070683462009-10-24T07:42:00.000-07:002009-10-24T08:12:40.183-07:00

Recently I have been taking the time to review the electronic text of thousands of our descriptions, to make small corrections and improvements. These include entering the HTML codes for formatting paragraphs, and occasionally also for bold and italic. The HTML formatting codes break up our sometimes long and often necessarily technical descriptions into logical increments, hopefully making them

Jeremy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04611636477208129385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5699580239711180881.post-17182612212583337462009-05-21T22:35:00.000-07:002009-05-21T22:42:32.444-07:00

As From Cave Paintings to the Internet has grown, I have noticed that the original keyword search left out critical information. In an effort to improve search results today Jessica Gore installed a new Google Custom Search engine on the database.From now on you should receive more complete results when you search on keyword or phrase in the search box in the upper right corner of all the

Jeremy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04611636477208129385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5699580239711180881.post-12207513614947712072009-05-16T08:14:00.000-07:002009-05-16T08:23:48.524-07:00

Those of you who check out the From Cave Paintings to the Internet Database that I am building as a hobby know that my interest in the history of information includes prehistory and the history of art. In my forthcoming book on the Discovery of the Stone Age one of the topics covered is the history of the discovery of prehistoric art. Thus the recent discoveries by Nicholas Conard and his team

Jeremy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04611636477208129385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5699580239711180881.post-38678180758011760102009-04-23T14:14:00.000-07:002009-04-23T14:22:23.759-07:00

We are pleased to announce the publication of our Catalogue 37: WORKS BY & ABOUT HARVEY CUSHING With a Rare Johns Hopkins Hospital Photograph Album from the Turn of the 20th Century, Featuring Photographs of Osler, Halsted & Cushing. The catalogue contains a remarkable collection of presentation copies and signed copies of works by Harvey Cushing, as well as letters, photographs, and drawings.

Jeremy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04611636477208129385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5699580239711180881.post-64993723127030251842009-04-20T08:42:00.000-07:002009-04-21T07:21:14.676-07:00

The Visigothic-Mozarabic Bible of St. Isidore, also known as the Biblia de León was completed in the Monastery of Valeránica, Spain on June 19, 960 by Iberian Christians who lived under Moorish Muslim rule in Al-Andalus, the portions of the Iberian Peninsula governed by Muslims at various times in the period between 711 and 1492. It is considered the best-documented Mozarabic bible as it includes

Jeremy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04611636477208129385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5699580239711180881.post-41543743583995207112009-04-14T16:24:00.000-07:002009-04-14T16:25:22.354-07:00

As those of you who have checked out From Cave Paintings to the Internet know, I am especially interested in what may be called the "intersections" of media -- points in which different media, such as computing and books, intersected in the history of media. What about this one--a robot page turner called Book Time Robot developed in Japan by Electric Machine Works? From my point of view this is

Jeremy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04611636477208129385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5699580239711180881.post-89939875547831066392009-04-12T22:25:00.000-07:002009-04-12T22:31:52.878-07:00

Since 2005 I have been building a timeline on my website, and more recently an interactive database, on the history of information and media. Writing about this innovative historical project has been a challenge. Here is the latest version of my introductory essay: About From Cave Paintings to the Internet A Chronological and Thematic Database on the History of Information and Media

Jeremy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04611636477208129385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5699580239711180881.post-15205740899134128872009-03-30T22:43:00.000-07:002009-03-30T22:54:50.108-07:00

We are pleased to offer the following new publication:Tomash, Erwin & Michael R. Williams. The Erwin Tomash library on the history of computing. An annotated and illustrated catalog. 3 vols. 1572 pages, with approximately 4000 illustrations. Privately printed, 2009. 277 x 214 mm. Soft covers, in slipcase. $600This extensively annotated

Jeremy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04611636477208129385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5699580239711180881.post-67911576084004433932009-02-15T05:22:00.000-08:002009-02-15T05:32:51.830-08:00

Just in time for the San Francisco Antiquarian Book Fair we issued our latest catalogue with full descriptions of over 150 items, including many new acquisitions. Every item in the catalogue is illustrated in color. You can download the PDF from our website.Remarkably, once the catalogue was written, and all the images were either photographed or scanned, Diana was able to process this catalogue

Jeremy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04611636477208129385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5699580239711180881.post-19961085343971260172008-11-04T22:24:00.000-08:002008-11-05T08:50:45.605-08:00

Those who have used the From Cave Paintings to the Internet Timeline understand my interest in the history of information and media, including the history of news media, leading to a few observations on what took place today:Apart from the historic election of Barack Obama, the first African American President of the United States, from the standpoint of the history of information and media, one

Jeremy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04611636477208129385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5699580239711180881.post-22734336917738997392008-10-25T08:30:00.000-07:002008-10-31T10:40:03.814-07:00

I am very pleased to announce that the interactive database version of my timeline on the history of information is now online. Since publication in 2005 of my book, From Gutenberg to the Internet, this timeline has been a work in progress, and as it has grown so has its scope. Reflecting the greatly increased scope of the timeline, I decided to rename it From Cave Paintings to the Internet.

Jeremy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04611636477208129385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5699580239711180881.post-32899373433971815752008-10-09T06:45:00.000-07:002008-10-09T07:15:41.828-07:00

Of private libraries recently constructed and collected one of the most spectacular must be the library and Wunderkammer, or Cabinet of Curiosities, formed by Jay Walker, founder of priceline.com and Walker Digital. Walker's library was recently the subject of a splendidly illustrated article, Browse the Artifacts of Geek History in Jay Walker's Library published in Wired Magazine. Click on the

Jeremy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04611636477208129385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5699580239711180881.post-41484578328027134152008-09-15T06:44:00.000-07:002008-09-15T10:18:41.480-07:00

As I as discussed in the introduction to my 2005 book, From Gutenberg to the Internet, one of the consequences of the Internet is the paradox that while vastly more information is now accessible to us by the click of a mouse, there is the question of how much digital information will survive over time. There is also the question of much of the information being generated on the Internet

Jeremy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04611636477208129385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5699580239711180881.post-91163508218077120772008-09-13T18:12:00.000-07:002008-10-09T14:40:46.477-07:00

I own an octavo volume of the Journal de Medicine for January 1760 that has been hollowed out to hold a music box which plays when you open the cover. You wind it up by turning a key visible when you lift the back cover.This also amuses me because it has the bookplate of the famous physician, Joseph Recamier. One would not expect a medical book to be made into a music box, but then whoever

Jeremy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04611636477208129385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5699580239711180881.post-30133471272113730902008-08-17T11:20:00.000-07:002008-08-17T12:44:07.979-07:00

As a specialist in rare books in the history of science and medicine for more than 40 years, I have handled numerous rare items concerning the history of resurrection men, also called resurrectionists, or body-snatchers. These pamphlets, broadsides, and books usually concern the business of illegally supplying corpses to anatomy schools in England and the United States during the early

Jeremy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04611636477208129385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5699580239711180881.post-6464344609644671252008-08-06T08:56:00.000-07:002008-08-18T08:41:40.461-07:00

In 2005 a map dealer, E. Forbes Smiley III, was caught stealing maps from Yale's Beinicke Library, leading to an investigation proving that he had stolen maps from numerous institutions, and that he had sold them to various unsuspecting dealers and clients. In everyone's best interests except Smiley's, the case received a great deal of publicity during 2005 to 2007, leading to increased security

Jeremy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04611636477208129385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5699580239711180881.post-8741047580307234672008-08-02T07:52:00.000-07:002008-12-11T15:25:46.972-08:00

Reading the New York Times review immediately caused me to order and read Larry McMurtry's recently published Books: A Memoir. McMurtry is the author of twenty-eight novels, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lonesome Dove, and over thirty screenplays, including the coauthorship with Diana Ossana, of the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain. Besides the honor, he received negative fashion

Jeremy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04611636477208129385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5699580239711180881.post-79725199858858510822008-07-31T07:41:00.000-07:002008-07-31T17:56:20.498-07:00

Though the Antikthera Mechanism was discovered over 100 years ago, the functions of this device, which is thought to date from 150 to 100 BCE, are only now beginning to be fully understood.Possibly as significant as understanding its operations are the latest methods of high resolution imaging and three-dimension x-ray tomography used to make the discoveries. The Antikythera Mechanism

Jeremy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04611636477208129385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5699580239711180881.post-15084476837245933212008-07-26T16:50:00.000-07:002008-07-27T18:55:42.979-07:00

An article with the cute headline, Literacy Debate: Online R U Reading?, discusses the question of whether reading online, with its searchability, hyperlinks, and interactive aspects, is the same as traditional reading of narratives, such as novels. As the article and its excellent associated chart indicate, clearly the answer is no, with a qualification pointed out by a commenter on this blog.

Jeremy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04611636477208129385noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5699580239711180881.post-88553385293410756662008-07-26T13:24:00.000-07:002008-07-28T10:03:18.277-07:00

With a touch of irony, perhaps, an excellent selection of twenty-five of the most modern "brick and mortar" libraries in the world appeared on a blog in the virtual global library we call the Internet. Yet most modern libraries are repositories for electronic information as well as traditional media on paper or on film, and some larger libraries are developing functions as meeting places, or even

Jeremy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04611636477208129385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5699580239711180881.post-25277776801404581102008-07-25T07:35:00.000-07:002008-07-26T09:58:19.260-07:00

The story of the discovery of the Codex Sinaiticus, at the Monastery of Saint Catherine on Mount Sinai in Egypt, by Constantin von Tischendorf, during his three visits to the monastery from 1844 to 1859, is one of the most romantic and complicated in book history. Along with the the Codex Alexandrinus and the Codex Vaticanus, this is one of the three earliest complete manuscripts of the Old and

Jeremy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04611636477208129385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5699580239711180881.post-70935872990706234232008-07-21T10:18:00.000-07:002008-07-27T07:44:05.936-07:00

Since writing From Gutenberg to the Internet I have continued to research the history of information -- particularly the history of the methods used for its creation, organization, distribution, and storage. The From Gutenberg to the Internet Timeline on my website may be considered a chronological outline of some of my research. Eventually this may result in a more comprehensive book. A

Jeremy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04611636477208129385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5699580239711180881.post-3090788223892016492008-07-16T06:43:00.000-07:002008-07-26T09:59:58.270-07:00

On June 12, Robert Darnton, distinguished historian and director of Harvard University Libraries, published in the New York Review of Books one of the most incisive analyses of the value of physical books and physical libraries in a world of information increasingly populated by digital books, digital libraries, and the Internet. This article I greatly recommend. There is also follow-up

Jeremy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04611636477208129385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5699580239711180881.post-37204074725197345082008-07-13T08:35:00.000-07:002008-07-26T22:16:43.996-07:00

Honestly I was always rather turned-off by the what I used to think was the quaint Victorian pre-occupation with collecting locks of hair of celebrities. It always seemed to me more the kind of thing that a mom would save in her baby album. That was till I read the article in today's The New York Times entitled A Little off the Top for History. It is available at the link above. Seems there are

Jeremy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04611636477208129385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5699580239711180881.post-36450190309444326642008-07-12T22:18:00.000-07:002008-07-26T10:02:18.331-07:00

In November 1909 E. M. Forster published a short story entitled The Machine Stops. Describing a world in which people live beneath the surface of the earth, with technology running virtually all aspects of their lives, the story anticipates instant messaging and videoconferencing with a machine called "the speaking apparatus." It also anticipates television with a machine called the "

Jeremy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04611636477208129385noreply@blogger.com0