Tidbits

Just some information that is in danger of dissappearing unless I make a record somewhere.

The whole genre of business literature really emerged in the mid-1600s (Cole). Cole's discussion of the rise of trade literature may be informative for further exporation of the history of publications such as Sweets.

Biersack edited an entire volume of articles about the shift in cultural history. While the volume as a whole is informative, Johns does a better job of articulating the ramifications for the history of the book.

Chartier has some interesting comments on Darnton, particularly with respect to his process of exploring genres and works: "Darnton follows the model of 'thick description' to the letter. The massacre of Parisian cats is like the cockfight in Bali: it is a point of entry that gives us access to the comprehension of a culture in its entirety." (p. 98) But, a record is only one particular reading of an event. I'm interested to further explore some of Chartier's notions of discourse as it pertains to manuals and handbooks.

Finally, Moss provides a long history of commonplaces, a tradition that finally died out in the seventeenth century. Commonplaces were memory devices that evolved into various forms and many have had an influence on library and collections management theory.

Ref

Biersack. The new cultural history.
Chartier. Cultural history.
Cole. The historical development of economic and business literature.
Moss. Printed commonplace books.