The Playful Antiquarian

Copy, cut, and paste

May 22nd, 2003

Since I had promised to blog about the Ticknor Society meeting for all who could not attend, here are a few thoughts…

The talk by Harvard history professor Ann Blair focused on how scholars in early modern Europe managed information and how, essentially, their methods of coping with information overload parallel our modern methods. She argued that “information overload” is not a new concept–it is simply a difference in form and scale.

The most interesting part of her talk was about note-taking methods and how scholars kept track of what was important. Some copied passages themselves (a time consuming method, especially for the impatient scholar). Others hired copyists (an expensive method). And others preferred the “cut and paste” method of note-taking.

The “cut and paste” method required a scholar to have two copies of a book: one to select and cut verso passages, and the other for recto. Relevant material was cut from the book and pasted into a separate notebook, within another book, etc. Sometimes this method was used to create indexes or to compile reference works.

Of course, listening to Professor Blair discuss this and looking at the slides she presented, my first thought was “Isn’t much of what is happening on the Internet today derived from this?” When I blog, I usually have one browser window open with my blog editing page and another one (or two) open to relevant sites. I copy the links from the sources to paste into my blog. And my blog becomes my index (arranged in a way that works best for me) to what I find useful or interesting on the Internet…How different is this from the 16th c. scholar cutting and pasting from two books? In fact, I am sure that the scholars mentioned in the talk would have delighted in the idea of “Ctrl. + C” and “Ctrl + V” and other wonderful shortcuts.

I really enjoyed the talk, and I also had a chance to spend time with two co-workers. Since the Massachusetts Historical Society is near the Fenway and both of my co-workers are avid gardeners, we took a quick walk over to the Fenway Victory Gardens. I am ashamed to admit this, but I did not know that these gardens (the oldest victory gardens in America) existed so it was quite an adventure for me…It was a nice reminder of why I should stay in the Boston area, just when I was starting to have doubts.

Related links:

• Ticknor Society (It is membership time again. If you have not been attending meetings, you have already missed many good talks and events. More exciting things are planned for the fall, including several “field trips”. Please join and spread the word.)
• Professor Blair’s history of the book course (Many students from this course attended the meeting last night–yea, new people at a Ticknor Society meeting!– so I took a peek at what they were learning. There are lots of good links and resources so check it out.)
• New England Women’s Diaries Project (I picked up a flyer about this yesterday at the MHS. I used to catalogue women’s diaries, among other things, when I worked for a local rare book dealer so I find this very interesting.)
• St. Jerome in his Study (This image from a fresco by Ghirlandaio was the first slide Professor Blair showed during her talk. Oddly enough, a friend sent me a postcard with this image many years ago when I was a grad. student at Harvard–long before I knew I wanted to be a librarian or knew that St. Jerome was the patron saint of librarians and archivists. I keep that postcard on my desk now.)

Entry Filed under: Lectures, Personal Miscellany