Page 5 - Virtual Research Lab flip book

the website became more sophisticated, I extended and improved the anno- tations of some entries, added headlines to all entries, and gradually added images. Along the way the mapping feature was added, and later improved. As other die-hard collectors will sympathize, the database took on a life of its own, following various paths in the history of media, extending to nearly 5000 entries when I wrote this in August 2020. I view the website as a kind of virtual research laboratory for the history of information, to be used by whoever happens to be interested in some aspect of the topics involved.
Early in the development of www.historyofinformation.com, I began re- vising my written efforts to understand the relationship between the fif- teenth century and today, taking the process through a multitude of drafts, all of which were published on the website and reworked to excess. Pub- lishing in this non-traditional way motivated me to continually attempt to improve both the database and my attempts at narrative and analysis. As time passed my interests were diverted to other topics, because I have always been a generalist with interests too wide for my own good, and after 2015 for the most part I put aside historyofinformation.com and my related essays to concentrate on building up my medical database, www.historyofmedicine- andbiology.com. Giving the ideas developed in these essays a few years to ferment, so to speak, enabled more clarity in my viewpoint, and ultimately focused these essays on attempting to answer the following questions, all of which concern the history of books:
1. To what extent may we compare the present transition from print to digital to the transition from manuscript to print in the second half of the fifteenth century?
2. How does studying the fifteenth-century transition in me- dia provide insight into the current transition in media?
3. How do we identify and define the various transitions in the history of books from oral culture to the electronic book or eBook? Answers to this question, I believe, are among the more significant results of my research building this database. I will present them as a series of essays at the end of this digital book.
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