Encyclopedias, Information Overload, and the Intellectual Division of Labor in Early America.
This article examines the history of encyclopedias in North America and Britain during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to foreground wider shifts in knowledge formation and organization caused by a growing perception of information overload. Tracing the Enlightenment manifestations of this...
| Publicado en: | Early American Studies, An Interdisciplinary Journal Vol. 22; no. 4; pp. 562 - 613 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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University of Pennsylvania Press
Fall2024
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=180764126&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 180764126 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 15434273 00N jtl: Early American Studies, An Interdisciplinary Journal issn: 15434273 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Fall2024 vid: 22 iid: 4 pid: 4636 pub: University of Pennsylvania Press artinfo: ui: 180764126 ppf: 562 ppct: 51 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 5MB tig: atl: Encyclopedias, Information Overload, and the Intellectual Division of Labor in Early America. aug: au: Pethers, Matthew affil: University of Nottingham su: Information overload Division of labor Information resources management Encyclopedias & dictionaries Eighteenth century Wikipedia Mather, Cotton, 1663-1728 Electronic encyclopedias sug: subj: Information overload Division of labor Information resources management Encyclopedias & dictionaries Eighteenth century Wikipedia Mather, Cotton, 1663-1728 Electronic encyclopedias keyword: Adam Ferguson Adam Smith Cotton Mather Division of Labor Encyclopaedia Britannica Encyclopedias Ephraim Chambers Information Overload Jedidiah Morse Knowledge Organization Polymaths Scottish Enlightenment Thomas Dobson ab: This article examines the history of encyclopedias in North America and Britain during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to foreground wider shifts in knowledge formation and organization caused by a growing perception of information overload. Tracing the Enlightenment manifestations of this concept, which is more typically seen as characteristic of twenty-first century digital culture, the article considers how attempts by Adam Ferguson and Adam Smith to establish an intellectual model of the division of labor in Scotland migrated to and were reworked in the early United States. This transition is explored through analysis of the Philadelphian publisher Thomas Dobson's Encyclopaedia; or a Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Miscellaneous Literature (1788–98), which reprinted and added to the third edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1787–97). Dobson's Encyclopaedia is situated in the context of: older traditions of synoptic writing practiced by figures like Cotton Mather, which retained a belief in the possibility of all-encompassing knowledge collection; emerging experiments by eighteenth-century encyclopedia makers with presentation and structure, designed to better order complex bodies of information and accommodate new data; and current debates around information democracy and management centered on Wikipedia, which indicate key points of change and continuity in the extended history of the encyclopedia form's struggle to be both comprehensive and up-to-date. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Early American Studies, An Interdisciplinary Journal is the property of University of Pennsylvania Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Early American Studies, An Interdisciplinary Journal holder: University of Pennsylvania Press dt: @attributes: year: 2024 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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