Ciceronas, Volteras ir Biblija: prancūzų bestseleriai Apšvietos amžiuje?

Since the early twentieth century, when Daniel Mornet conducted his path-breaking survey of private library catalogues in an attempt to determine what people read during the enlightenment, historians have debated how to identify the best-selling texts in the distant past. Besides library catalogues, scholars of eighteenth-century France have ransacked will inventories, publishers’ archives, print licence registers, book auction records, the titles available in cabinets de lecture, and even the extraordinarily rich records of books stamped in an amnesty for pirated editions in 1777–1781. This article suggests that none of these sources taken in isolation can give us sufficient insight to provide a reliable overview of the book trade and the market for books. Taken together and analysed digitally, however, they give important representative insights into the best-selling texts, genres and authors of the eighteenth century. The article compares and contrasts the findings of several large-scale digital projects to identify and explore the best-selling – or most frequently-encountered-texts across a number of genres including school-books, self-help manuals, popular medical texts, creative literature and religious works. In the process, it will help us to think more critically about what constituted a best-seller in the early modern period. By revealing some broad contours of eighteenth-century print culture, it will also challenge existing narratives of the enlightenment, secularisation, popular literacy and the book trade.Nuo XX a. pradžios, kai Danielis Mornet atliko savo inovatyvų privačių bibliotekų katalogų tyrimą siekdamas nustatyti, ką žmonės skaitė Apšvietos amžiuje, istorikai diskutavo, kaip atpažinti perkamiausius tekstus tolimoje praeityje. Be bibliotekų katalogų, XVIII amžiaus Prancūzijos mokslininkai įnirtingai tyrinėjo testamentų registrus, leidėjų archyvus, spaudos licencijų registrus, knygų aukcionų įrašus, skaityklose (pranc. ca binets de lecture) esančius kūrinius ir net nepaprastai gausią amnestuotų piratinių 1777–1781 m. knygų leidimų dokumentaciją. Šiame straipsnyje teigiama, kad nė vienas iš šių šaltinių atskirai negali suteikti mums pakankamai įžvalgų, kad galėtume pateikti patikimą prekybos knygomis ir knygų rinkos apžvalgą. Tačiau paimti kartu ir analizuoti skaitmeniniu būdu jie suteikia svarbių reprezentatyvių įžvalgų apie XVIII amžiaus geriausiai parduodamus tekstus, žanrus ir autorius. Straipsnyje lyginamos ir supriešinamos kelių didelio masto skaitmeninių projektų išvados, siekiant nustatyti ir ištirti perkamiausius arba dažniausiai aptinkamus įvairių žanrų tekstus, įskaitant mokyklinius vadovėlius, savigalbos vadovus, populiariosios medicinos tekstus, kūrybinę literatūrą ir religines knygas. Tai padės mums kritiškiau įvertinti, kokie kūriniai ankstyvajame moderniajame laikotarpyje buvo laikomi bestseleriais. Kai kurių plačių XVIII amžiaus spaudos kultūros kontūrų atskleidimas taip pat meta iššūkį esamiems Apšvietos amžiaus, sekuliarizacijos, visuotinio raštingumo ir knygų prekybos naratyvams

Can Amazon.com reviews help to assess the wider impacts of books?

University of Wolverhampto

Technical Processing of University Library: A Theoretical Study

Technical services operations comprise of ordering, claiming and receipt of materials, cataloging and classification of materials; and serials control. Beside these, other technical services operations contain circulation, documents, foreign language and special collections, and bibliographic instruction in technical services areas. This leads me to believe that the distinction between technical services and public or reader services in individual libraries is based on custom and tradition arising out of incidental circumstances, rather than on fundamental principle. In this article, I tried to provide some basic aspect regarding technical processing which help in maintaining the library bitterly. In this article, I include basic aspect of acquisition, classification, cataloguing and information retrieval. Beside this I tried to focus on library management software which is most important for technical processing now a day

Publishing Sacrobosco’s De sphaera in Early Modern Europe

This open access volume focuses on the cultural background of the pivotal transformations of scientific knowledge in the early modern period. It investigates the rich edition history of Johannes de Sacrobosco’s Tractatus de sphaera, by far the most widely disseminated textbook on geocentric cosmology, from the unique standpoint of the many printers, publishers, and booksellers who steered this text from manuscript to print culture, and in doing so transformed it into an established platform of scientific learning. The corpus, constituted of 359 different editions featuring Sacrobosco’s treatise on cosmology and astronomy printed between 1472 and 1650, represents the scientific European shared knowledge concerned with the cosmological worldview of the early modern period until far after the publication of Copernicus’ De revolutionibus orbium coelestium in 1543. The contributions to this volume show how the academic book trade influenced the process of homogenization of scientific knowledge. They also describe the material infrastructure through which such knowledge was disseminated, and thus define the premises for the foundation of modern scientific communities

Publishing Sacrobosco’s De sphaera in Early Modern Europe: Modes of Material and Scientific Exchange

his open access volume focuses on the cultural background of the pivotal transformations of scientific knowledge in the early modern period. It investigates the rich edition history of Johannes de Sacrobosco’s Tractatus de sphaera, by far the most widely disseminated textbook on geocentric cosmology, from the unique standpoint of the many printers, publishers, and booksellers who steered this text from manuscript to print culture, and in doing so transformed it into an established platform of scientific learning. The corpus, constituted of 359 different editions featuring Sacrobosco’s treatise on cosmology and astronomy printed between 1472 and 1650, represents the scientific European shared knowledge concerned with the cosmological worldview of the early modern period until far after the publication of Copernicus’ De revolutionibus orbium coelestium in 1543. The contributions to this volume show how the academic book trade influenced the process of homogenization of scientific knowledge. They also describe the material infrastructure through which such knowledge was disseminated, and thus define the premises for the foundation of modern scientific communities

The emergence of Finnish book and reading culture in the 1700s

"Book culture has emerged as an extremely dynamic and border-crossing field of research, internationally and in Finland. The editors and most of the writers of this book were members of the organizing and program committees of the 18th Annual Conference of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing (SHARP), Book Culture from Below, that took place in Helsinki in 2010. This book provides, for the first time in English, an overview of an important epoch in Finnish book and reading history. Besides depicting book culture at the periphery of Europe, it contributes to our understanding of the power of the urbanized European literary world of the 1700s. The new reading culture that emerged in Finland during the 1700s affected readers and all levels of society in many ways. Along with other trends, the arrival of translated fiction and Enlightenment literature from Europe opened and irrevocably altered the Finns’ world view. The change was especially pronounced in cities. Scholars, merchants, craftspersons, as well as military officers stationed at Helsinki’s offshore Sveaborg fortress, acquired world literature and guides intended for professionals at, for example, book auctions. In this book, researchers from different fields examine the significance and influence of that era’s books from cultural, historical, ideological, and social perspectives. What kinds of books did the citizens of Helsinki really buy, loan, and read during the 1700s? What topics and ideas introduced by the new literature were discussed in salons and reading circles? Who were the books’ large-scale consumers? Who were the literary opinion leaders of their times? Why did people read? Did the books change their readers’ lives?

Publishing Sacrobosco’s De sphaera in Early Modern Europe

This open access volume focuses on the cultural background of the pivotal transformations of scientific knowledge in the early modern period. It investigates the rich edition history of Johannes de Sacrobosco’s Tractatus de sphaera, by far the most widely disseminated textbook on geocentric cosmology, from the unique standpoint of the many printers, publishers, and booksellers who steered this text from manuscript to print culture, and in doing so transformed it into an established platform of scientific learning. The corpus, constituted of 359 different editions featuring Sacrobosco’s treatise on cosmology and astronomy printed between 1472 and 1650, represents the scientific European shared knowledge concerned with the cosmological worldview of the early modern period until far after the publication of Copernicus’ De revolutionibus orbium coelestium in 1543. The contributions to this volume show how the academic book trade influenced the process of homogenization of scientific knowledge. They also describe the material infrastructure through which such knowledge was disseminated, and thus define the premises for the foundation of modern scientific communities

Literary translation and soft power: African literature in Chinese translation

In the context of competing and conflicting discourses about the intensification of relations between China and Africa in the 21st century, this article explores the potential for gaining insight into China–Africa relations through a study of literary translation activities. The article presents the results of a survey of African literature translated into Chinese between 2000 and 2015 and argues that the majority of the translations can be linked with commercial motivations. However, the article also identifies a number of exceptions to this pattern and investigates these on a case by case basis, taking into account the political connections of the authors and drawing on interviews with the Chinese publishing houses. The article argues that literary translation can be connected with the cultivation of good political relations at the highest levels, as well as with the promotion of Sino-African friendship and of a positive view of China. The article asks whether such translation projects can be, or should be, classified as tools of ‘soft power’, and reflects more generally on the usefulness of the soft power concept for translation studies

THE ECONOMICS OF THE MANUSCRIPT AND RARE BOOK TRADE, ca. 1890–1939

The market for rare books has been characterized as unpredictable, and driven by the whims of a small number of rich individuals. Yet behind the headlines announcing new auction records, a range of sources make it possible to analyze the market as a whole. This book introduces the economics of the trade in manuscripts and rare books during the turbulent period ca. 1890–1939. It demonstrates how surviving sources, even when incomplete and inconsistent, can be used to tackle questions about the operation of the rare book trade, including how books were priced, profit margins, accounting practices, and books as investments, from the perspectives of both dealers and collectors