The Biblia Pauperum, the “Bible of the Poor”, printed in the lower Rhine region or Low countries, c1460. An example of whole-page illustration, where the image, a woodcut, replaces the text entirely. Within a few years, integrated text and illustrations
Albrecht Pfister, Die Edelstein, thought to be the first illustrated book (1460s). The illustration is a woodcut. [illustration from the Stadtbibliothek Berlin, public domain]
Books about book history are usually triumphalist: how the printed word democratized knowledge, made learning possible, changed …
I expected great things from this book, published in the Charleston Briefings series. Digital scholarship has been around for enough time to assess how things have changed since the era of print; Google Scholar has existed since 2004, which means over …
The Web is full of ideas for self-improvement: how to be more efficient, more productive, more successful. One tip for reading more effectively is to read only short books (I’m not joking – there is a website that tells you which …
This is the story of a tragedy: a step forward for the academic community that was resisted and then blocked. It’s difficult to imagine, but Along Came Google (Princeton, 2021) is as gripping as any thriller – except for the conclusion.…
Erik J Larson has written a passionate attack on the current fashion for AI. For him, the myth of AI is assuming that the current AI-based utilities we have developed can be extended into AGI (artificial general intelligence). His arguments are …
Reading Time: 6minutesIllustration by William Warby (Unsplash)
This short guide, in the “What Everyone Needs to Know” series from Oxford University Press, provides an outline of bibliometrics: measuring the impact and value of research. How to measure research is a topic that has …
Reading Time: 4minutesThe TLS: around 35 book reviews every week
It is a commonplace that nobody reads any more – the Web has put a stop to all that. I googled “Has the Internet destroyed reading?” and got 378 million hits, including (among …
