| Sumario: | We are surrounded by learned books. Encyclopedias, dictionaries and textbooks are everywhere, from bookshops to libraries, at home and at work. Internet would have even increased their number, if we are to believe the apostles of all-digital. Specialized books would no longer be reserved for specialists. But what is a scholarly book? Diderot and D'Alembert, with their encyclopedia, had they conceived the scholarly book par excellence? How was it different from the work of precursors like Fontenelle? The knowledge that popularizes Louis Guillaume Fig tree in the XIX th -century it is the same one that pervades the pages of Elementary Particles by Michel Houellebecq, even those of the Da Vinci Codefrom Dan Brown? Rather than a single scholarly book, there are many forms, all historically determined. The authors of The Knowledge of Books have wondered about this story. They wanted to understand what has been the evolution of scientific publishing, from print to the Internet. They met on their way journals and databases, printers and men of letters, scientists and extensionists. They looked at the status of images in the dissemination of knowledge. They even wondered what the future of the scholarly book was. They especially wanted to pay homage to these formidable machines that are the books.
|
|---|
