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Reading Strategies for Coping with Information Overload, ca.1550-1700

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blair 2003.pdf (150.11 KB)

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2003

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10.2307/3654293

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Johns Hopkins University Press
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Blair, Ann. 2003. Reading strategies for coping with information overload, ca.1550-1700. Journal of the History of Ideas 64, no. 1: 11-28.

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This article surveys some of the ways in which early modern scholars responded to what they perceived as an overabundance of books. In addition to owning more books and applying selective judgment as well as renewed diligence to their reading and note-taking, scholars devised shortcuts, sometimes based on medieval antecedents. These shortcuts included the use of the alphabetical index, whether printed or handmade, to read a book in parts, and the use of reference books, amanuenses, abbreviations, or the cutting and pasting from printed or manuscript sources to save time and effort in note-taking.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/jhi.2003.0014

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This article is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material (LAA), as set forth at Terms of Service

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http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:3228379

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Related Stories

Story
Reading Strategies for Coping with Information… : DASH Story 2013-09-13
I was looking for this article to assign to grad students. I could not remember anything except the author's name. I would certainly have found it eventually but it was great to just google Ann Blair, find her faculty page, and see the article I was searching for right there, downloadable in full. Thanks!
Story
Reading Strategies for Coping with Information… : DASH Story 2014-01-28
I am a student of Holistic Nutrition at the online school, American College of Healthcare Sciences. I am conducting a literature review of copings strategies and journal writing. I find this article interesting because it is concerned with information overload from the Medieval period. Today in the 21st Century, we are faced with a multitude of stressors that over stimulate us in our daily lives. I just want to add that as we gain more knowledge and more advances, we have to figure out how to filter all the information we are bombarded with.
Story
Reading Strategies for Coping with Information… : DASH Story 2015-02-23
I am a librarian on the Canadia side of the Pacific NorthWest. I accessed the article because of a Twitter conversation some other library and Higher Ed folks are having about just how persistent and perennial the "new" problems we face with students regarding information overload, undisciplined study habits, a propensity for surface learning... the classic terrain for any grumpy curmudgeon in academia complaining about "kids these days." I can access this whole article "Reading Strategies for Coping with Information Overload, ca.1550-1700" and discuss the timelessness of workarounds and shortcuts taken among the scholarly community to cope with information overload. It's not about the net gen, folks. It's about being human. And look here, I have easy access to the evidence that proves such an assertion. Thanks, OA. And thanks, Harvard.