An edition of You could look it up (2016)

You could look it up

the reference shelf from ancient Babylon to Wikipedia

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Last edited by MARC Bot
December 20, 2022 | History
An edition of You could look it up (2016)

You could look it up

the reference shelf from ancient Babylon to Wikipedia

  • 3 Want to read

"Today we think of Wikipedia as the source of all information, the ultimate reference. Yet it is just the latest in a long line of aggregated knowledge--reference works that have shaped the way we've seen the world for centuries. You Could Look It Up chronicles the captivating stories behind these great works and their contents, and the way they have influenced each other. From The Code of Hammurabi, the earliest known compendium of laws in ancient Babylon almost two millennia before Christ to Pliny's Natural History; from the 11th-century Domesday Book recording land holdings in England to Abraham Ortelius's first atlas of the world; from Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language to The Whole Earth Catalog to Google, Jack Lynch illuminates the human stories and accomplishment behind each, as well as its enduring impact on civilization. In the process, he offers new insight into the value of knowledge." --

Publish Date
Publisher
Bloomsbury Press
Language
English
Pages
453

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Previews available in: English

Edition Availability
Cover of: You could look it up
You could look it up: the reference shelf from ancient Babylon to Wikipedia
2016, Bloomsbury Press
in English

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Book Details


Table of Contents

Looking it up
Justice in the earth : laws of the ancient world
Of making many books : information overload
In the beginning was the word : the first dictionaries
A fraction of the total : counting reference books
The history of nature : science in antiquity
Easy as ABC : the rise (and fall?) of alphabetical order
Round earth's imagined corners : mapping the world
The invention of the codex
The circle of the sciences : ancient encyclopedias
The dictionary gets its day in court
Leechcraft : medieval medicine
Plagiarism : the crime of literary theft
New Worlds : cartography in an age of discovery
Tell me how you organize your books
Admirable artifice : computers before computers
To bring people together : societies
The infirmity of human nature : guides to error
Ignorance, pure ignorance : of omissions, ambiguities, and plain old blunders
Guarding the avenues of language : dictionaries in the eighteenth century
Of ghosts and Mountweazels
The way of faith : guidelines for believers
Who's who and what's what : making the cut
Erotic recreations : sex manuals
The boys' club
Collecting knowledge into the smallest areas : the great encyclopedias
Dictionary or encyclopedia?
Of redheads and Babus : dictionaries and empire
A small army : collaborative endeavors
Killing time : games and sports
Out of print
Monuments of erudition : the great national dictionaries
Counting editions
Grecian glory, Roman grandeur : Victorian eyes on the ancient world
Lost projects : what might have been
Words telling their own stories : the historical dictionaries
Overlong and overdue
An Alms-Basket of words : the reference book as salvation
Reading the dictionary
Modern material media : staying healthy
Incomplete and abandoned projects
The foundation stone : library catalogs
Index learning
The good life : the arts and high society
Some unlikely reference books
Presumed purity : science in a scientific age
At no extra cost! the business of reference books
Full and authoritative information : doctrine for the modern world
Unpersons : damnatio memoriae
Nothing special : books for browsers
The world's information : the encyclopedia dream.

Edition Notes

Includes bibliographical references (pages 401-424) and index.

Other Titles
Reference shelf from ancient Babylon to Wikipedia

Classifications

Dewey Decimal Class
028.709
Library of Congress
Z1035.1 .L96 2016, Z1035.1

The Physical Object

Pagination
453 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates
Number of pages
453

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL27206800M
Internet Archive
youcouldlookitup0000lync
ISBN 10
080277752X
ISBN 13
9780802777522
LCCN
2016479392
OCLC/WorldCat
898418972

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December 20, 2022 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
August 7, 2021 Edited by New York Times Bestsellers Bot Add NYT review links
August 24, 2020 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
July 19, 2019 Created by MARC Bot import new book