At the start of the 2010, we heard the sad news of the death of Brian Vickery in October last year. He was one of the leading lights of British information science over many years. This post is an expanded version of a short appreciation which I wrote as an editorial for Journal of Documentation.… Continue reading Brian Vickery (and the uneasy information scientists)
Category: history and information history
The House of Wisdom
A new book by Jonathan Lyons, The House of Wisdom: how the Arabs transformed Western civilisation, has a few surprising insights on developments in the recording and transmission of knowledge in the period. Lyons focuses on the contribution of Abbasid rulers of Baghdad, from the founding of the dynasty in 762 to its overthrow by… Continue reading The House of Wisdom
Are important years information years ?
An article in Intelligent Life magazine for summer 2009 tried to decide which was 'The most important year ever'. The feature writer, Andrew Marr, argued for 1776, with the American Declaration of Independence, or 1945, with its world changing events; he was duly rebuked for US-centrism by website commentators. His five guests chose arguably more… Continue reading Are important years information years ?
Eating in the Library
We have become used to the idea that libraries of all kinds are adding on coffee shops and the like, and no longer necessarily barring food and drink being brought in. This increasing linkage between food and libraries seems to be taken a stage further in London, where a number of former libraries are being… Continue reading Eating in the Library
The attraction of lost libraries
Sometimes it seems that libraries are at their most alluring when they are lost forever, or even when they never existed. Jorges Luis Borges' infinite library is surely the best known of his many imaginative creations, while Alberto Manguel's The Library at Night devotes a good few pages to libraries which are no more, or… Continue reading The attraction of lost libraries
The Occasional Informationist 