Talk:History of books

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I added a paragraph or so to the Contemporary Era section, and whittled down some of the wordiness. I felt there was little on the e-book phenomenon and that it should probably be updated. If anybody else has anything to contribute to that section, that would be great! I would also suggest that the entire article lacks sufficient citations, and that someone could undertake that alone as a project. Mens.E11 (talk) 11:30, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Both commentators (below) are right: the English phrase "History of the book" commonly refers to an academic discipline, or interdisciplinary field, which has flourished in the last quarter century. The field is also often called "Book history." Those two synonymous phrases should be cross-referenced—and related also to "l'histoire du livre," from which they derive. There is a large literature about the goals and accomplishments of scholars in the field, which does not figure in the present article. Dictionarium (talk) 03:08, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

JB Vaughan (see below) is right: there is a confusion here. In English, "The History of the Book" is the name of an academic discipline. Like the Wikipedia articles on "Social History" and "Economic History", a page on the History of the Book should therefore consist in a description of an academic discipline, discussing such topics as research methodology, key texts, etc. That is not what we have here - instead, we have a lengthy essay on the topic of books in history. The only parts of this article which truly belong in an article on the academic discipline of the History of the Book are the sections on "Academic Programs", "Resources", and "External Links".

The rest of the article - which is to say, the bulk of it - should be cut from here and pasted into a new article with a new title. Perhaps "Historical Development of the Book" would be appropriate. It could even be linked to from here. I'm not saying it's bad - just that it's in the wrong place.

Sorry to put this to the head of the talk page, but JB Vaughan's comment below is now just over two years old and appears to have been totally ignored - I'm concerned that if I put my comment below his, it will also be ignored. I will wait one month for responses before making any changes.

Ninj (talk) 16:25, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The direct article translation from the French wikipedia does not adequately represent "History of the book" as is is understood in the english tradition. In english, History "is the study of human behavior through time." The orientation of this article is not towards a type of study but towards outlining a specific series of events -- telling a story in the "histoire" sense (i.e. the french concept 'histoire du livre' does not map directly across to 'history of the book' in english as that (english) phrase is used. Maybe the article needs to be retitled or disambiguated from a new article on "Book History" (distinct from the journal)? Or, maybe the set of subsections which outline specific media advances etc. need to be set under a section something like "Key Events in the Study of the History of the Book"? If the later, the opening text should tend towards online descriptions of "History of the Book" university centres, graduate programs and publication projects in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, and Ireland, (notably, the publications of such programs/centres go well beyond the technology/media defnition given in the french article).

For the bibliography idea, it is noted that there are so many books on the topic, maybe it would be better to put in external links to the 1) international bibliography database: "Book History Online: An International Bibliography" from Koninklijke Bibliotheek http://www.kb.nl/bho/index.html 2) Some of the Book History society pages with descriptive content/bibliographies 3) (definitely agree about) the links to the various international "History of the Book in [Country]" publication project web-sites...? I am new to Wiki editing and do not know how to do this yet (but hopefully will remember to check back once I learn more). Also noted that the entry for the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing journal "Book History" exists as a wiki orphan entry that "needs to be linked to" (and maybe also needs to be clearly identified as a journal as opposed to a discipline, with one of those redirecty-type things at the top to "History of the Book"), but again, I do not know how to add that...

JBVaughan 04:49, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm taking a stab at adding a "bibliography" to this very good article, knowing very well that I'll probably "stab" someone in doing so -- there are so many books etc. which might be recommended for this topic...

My primary motivation, as will appear immediately from my selection, is to keep the booklist international: the subject is fascinating to a lot of folks, in a lot of different places, and I find it very useful to consult other traditions to better understand my own. Also, the others are interesting: the Americans do things differently than the British do, in these areas -- and the anglo-américains do things differently than the French -- and i.e. I would hope that someone has done a good "history of the book" for China, hopefully one translated, perhaps in Needham (?), and that someone who knows of this will add an entry for it here.

The aim, too, has been to select resources of general appeal, to someone just beginning an interest in the topic. I have no idea how someone new might handle a plunge into "analytical bibliography", for example: not well, I would imagine. Better that they first be guided to large-format picture books, and clear historical explanations, I think.

--Kessler 19:47, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I combined the two references which were in there -- Diringer's very good book, and the recent one by David Finkelstein which I have not read but now will. My thought is that we might set some sort of arbitrary limit -- 20 entries, say, or maybe less, discussing the choices here -- to keep the bibliography from running overboard with everyone's favorite entries. The more international the better, though, I myself believe: the trouble with simply referring people to the French and other Wikipedia language sites is that folks never go there, and so all the "comparative" content gets lost -- plenty of folks here know other languages, and need to read at least some materials from other places to broaden their understanding of their own.

--Kessler 20:01, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just dropped by after looking at Book, and the history section there seems better organized than this article. If I had the time, I would reorganize the material her as per the organization there. Anyone care to do this? If I did do this any objections? --lk 06:43, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

can now add themselves to

The Manuscript Studies and Palaeography Collection at Senate House Library, University of London

Was deleted as "spam"!--Wetman (talk) 07:54, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I removed it because it set off my spam radar. User:Palaeography Room, the user adding the link was a new user whose only contribs were adding this link to several articles with no edit summary, always listing them at the top of the list, and originally calling this site "the best." This made it look a lot like advertising. If you feel this link is appropriate, by all means add it, but the way User:Palaeography Room did it made it look like spam. Thanks. Apparition11 (talk) 11:51, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand why the title uses the definite article. It creates the impression that it is about a specific individual book. Why not "History of books"? Roger (talk) 16:29, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

does it even matter??. its called the "BOOK" because it simply talkes about books. GENERALY —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.127.169.231 (talk) 11:21, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is a problem, as noted in the top section with the current title this article will be confused with the academic discipline of the same name, while "History of books" would not carry that connotation. --Saddhiyama (talk) 11:30, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yet the introduction to the article claims that this is about the academic discipline. Either the old name needs to come back (ideally not since there's not much on the academic field beyond that first line) or the introduction needs to be rejiggled to make it clear that this is history of books, not the History of the Book.

-Iralie (talk) 19:56, 17 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't continue a discussion that is 5 years old as if nothing has changed. The article was very different then, and you make it look like I am defending an issue which I am not. Any current issues should be discussed in a new and separate discussion. --Saddhiyama (talk) 21:01, 17 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have created a sandbox (User:Sabiona/Sandbox History of the book) where I am attempting a cleanup of this page. Please feel free to lend ideas, I have read and am taking into account what was already mentioned above. Thanks and wish me luck, Sabiona (talk) 15:48, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

For some reason this article (both the original and the sandbox version) switches tense several times. For example, the section "Transformation from the literary edition in the twelfth century" uses each of past, present, and future tense ("It was used...", "This revival accompanies...", "... period of the book will come..."), despite the entire section being about changes which occurred in the past. I don't have time to go through and standardize it, but someone should probably do so. Avedomni (talk) 21:45, 9 January 2010 (UTC) it doesnt really matter does it?? when articles are being written almost every day its a non stop phenomenon// Jan 10 (L.A)[reply]

Confusing Wording?

The line, "the works of Protagoras were burned because he was a proponent of agnosticism and argued that one could know whether or not the gods existed," seems confusing to me. Is it supposed to say that he argued that one could NOT know? If he argued that one COULD know whether or not the gods existed, that would not be advocating agnosticism. Neophytesage (talk) 02:56, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Poor reference

The references to "Needham" are incredibly vague. They contain wikilinks, but these are pointless circular links to this article. I suspect they might be referring to Joseph Needham, but either way, without an actual reference (which I can't track down, and I can't get at his books) they're useless and quite possibly wrong. Can someone else look into this? -- Shimmin Beg (talk) 11:37, 9 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I was unsure of where to start with the suggested clean up of this article. It has a lot of potential. I found the introduction was lacking interest, so I began there. My intent is to draw more attraction to the article by clearly depicting key concepts discussed throughout the piece. --Jen.cooper (talk) 20:19, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

New stuff goes at the bottom. If you meant for your comment to be part of the "Comment discussion" it would to at the bottom of that section. Please do not reintroduce your lead without addressing the (valid) point raised by

WP:LEAD for guidelines on what an article introis supposed to be." Ian.thomson (talk) 23:44, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply

]

The article talks about when writing on clay tablets and silk appeared, but not about when books appeared. ChangMei (talk) 23:12, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why isn't book history left to be covered at book? It looks like this page was once called "The History of the Book", implying it was about the academic discipline. The opening lines of this page also hint at this. Yet there is nothing on The History of the Book on this page. It should be on wikipedia, and as this page is not it is should lose any pretentions to be that. We should strip the

=Iralie (talk) 20:03, 17 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This article jumps from the 19th Century to ebooks. There is a rich history and available information about publishing especially in the 20th century. I'd be glad to discuss this with other bibliophiles.

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I added some material to the section labeled "East Asia", it's the entire third paragraph. Let me know if there are any suggestions as far as that goes. In the additional material, I covered more on

--Bwrite New Mind (talk) 22:52, 11 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I have started to alter the introduction of this page to reflect the significance of the topic as an academic discipline. I have only just started to amend the introduction, so please bear with me until it is finished. By all means offer constructive criticism ˜˜˜˜ — Preceding unsigned comment added by JD3374 (talk • contribs) 05:31, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

How did such a horrible article get written? Is this just vandalism or stupidity? 79.106.203.82 (talk) 08:25, 8 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 12 April 2021 and 26 May 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Reindeer.and.sloth (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Mbuyer2, Gusagyemang.

— Assignment last updated by TroublingMoo (talk) 17:07, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]