In Search of Enlightenment: From Mapping Books to Cultural History.
This essay discusses the philosophy, methodology, myriad conceptual dilemmas, and ultimate findings of the AHRC-funded French Book Trade in Enlightenment Europe (FBTEE) project. The project, which has been widely acclaimed, has created an "interpretational-relational database" to map the pan-Europea...
| Published in: | Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies Vol. 13; no. 4; pp. 3 - 29 |
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| Format: | Essay |
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University of Pennsylvania Press
2013
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=90240601&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 90240601 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 15310485 DBLW jtl: Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies issn: 15310485 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: 2013 vid: 13 iid: 4 pid: 4636 pub: University of Pennsylvania Press artinfo: ui: 90240601 10.1353/jem.2013.0042 ppf: 3 ppct: 26 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 1.1MB tig: atl: In Search of Enlightenment: From Mapping Books to Cultural History. aug: au: BURROWS, SIMON su: Book industry Cultural history Publishing Enlightenment Relational databases Early Modern Period (Literary period) sug: subj: Book industry Cultural history Publishing Enlightenment Relational databases Early Modern Period (Literary period) ab: This essay discusses the philosophy, methodology, myriad conceptual dilemmas, and ultimate findings of the AHRC-funded French Book Trade in Enlightenment Europe (FBTEE) project. The project, which has been widely acclaimed, has created an "interpretational-relational database" to map the pan-European book trade of the celebrated Société typographique de Neuchâtel (STN), a large-scale Swiss wholesaler-publisher that operated between 1769 and 1794. The article showcases how careful database design and the provision of custom-designed digital tools and sophisticated but intuitive online interface allow users to compensate for complexities, uncertainties, biases, and gaps in the STN archive, particularly by customized data filters that allow them to search multiple subsets of data. The article argues that by intelligent application of these tools, we can create customized datasets that can stand proxy for the wider European book trade of the late eighteenth- century, and hence serve as a means to take the pulse of the later Enlightenment. Finally, it maps the future development of the project, and how further types of book-trade-related sources might be treated in the same manner as the STN archive in a single network of inter-operable projects to create a more rounded and comprehensive sense of the reception, communication, and transformation of ideas across space and time. More than the culmination of a book history project, this is surely one of the holy grails of cultural history, and hitherto a most elusive one. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Essay src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies 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: Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies holder: University of Pennsylvania Press dt: @attributes: year: 2013 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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