Until fairly recently, say 19th Century, the survival of ‘content’ from the past has been as much as matter of chance as of design. The invention of printing, of course, arriving in the 1450s, made a huge difference to the survival of documents of all kinds including from the previous ages of scribal production. But, as is evident from Roland Allen’s research in “The Notebook” the development and spread of paper as a medium not only made printing feasible but also the general use of paper as a means of recording all kinds of information. Yet by its nature paper is also a vulnerable medium and even if printing ensured the survival of a great deal much has been lost. For the everyday use of paper as a personal as well as an official medium of record, survivals have been rare when considered against the huge scale of creation over the centuries since the 1400s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today, digital methods of production and storage of text, images and sound, have the result that very much less is lost.* In fact, we may be entering an age when we experience a new kind of cultural problem, the overabundance of ‘content’. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Is this a new kind of problem?**<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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* I use the word ‘less’ deliberately for much of the world’s population remains unaffected by the presence of digital media. and probably cares even less! Yet, it has to be true that over the next few decades the digital archive provides a deeper pool of content that represents in greater variety and detail the ‘output’ of human beings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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** In fact, reading Yeo, Notebooks, English Virtuosi, and Early Modern Science<\/a>, and Allen (see below) this is not really a new problem. During the period leading up to the of the creation of the Royal Society and then beyond into the 17-18 Centuries we find much anxiety about how to manage the flood of content and information that printing made available<\/p>\n\n\n\n ===========<\/p>\n\n\n\n Posted to Bluesky<\/p>\n\n\n\n (1)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Takeaways: paper enabled print but also the spread of paper notebooks. Most now lost (tens of thousands?). Many books too but notebook loss is greater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Contrast with the scale (~100%?) and longevity (200+ yrs?) of digital storage. This near-perfect archive may be our cultural nemesis (e.g. LLMs!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n (2)<\/p>\n\n\n\n #books<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n For those interested in the history\/evolution of pre-digital media see ‘The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper<\/a>‘. Some useful insights into our media precursors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n