You Could Look It Up

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You Could Look It Up
AuthorJack Lynch
Published2016 (Bloomsbury Press)
Pages464
ISBN978-0-8027-7752-2 (Hardcover)

You Could Look It Up is a book of essays on the history of reference works by Rutgers University English professor Jack Lynch.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]

Summary

The book opens with the earliest written works such as the Code of Hammurabi and how they describe the values of the societies in which they were written. An overview of the history of reading is provided, as well as the contrast between intensive reading out of scarcity and "defensive reading" in times of information overload.

The advent of dictonaries led to detailed reference works that overlap with the concept of a modern encyclopedia. Authors originally tried organizing content thematically, but arranging text in alphabetical order became more commonplace in the 1600s and eventually became the standard form of organization.

See also

References

  1. Manguel, Alberto (March 3, 2016). "You Could Look It Up : Review". The New York Times. Retrieved November 11, 2016.
  2. Valentine, Genevieve (February 24, 2016). "Book Review: 'You Could Look It Up' By Jack Lynch". Npr.org. Retrieved November 11, 2016.
  3. Steven Poole. "You Could Look It Up by Jack Lynch review – search engines can't do everything | Books". The Guardian. Retrieved November 11, 2016.
  4. Thonemann, Peter (May 25, 2016). "The all-conquering Wikipedia?: How the online encyclopedia is fast replacing the reference book". The Times Literary Supplement. Retrieved November 11, 2016.
  5. Dirda, Michael. "'You Could Look It Up': The world before and since Wikipedia". The Washington Post. Retrieved November 11, 2016.
  6. "You Could Look It Up - Stephanie Bastek". The American Scholar. February 23, 2016. Retrieved November 11, 2016.
  7. "You Could Look It Up is a requiem for reference | The National". Thenational.ae. April 20, 2016. Retrieved November 11, 2016.
  8. Ian Critchley (May 1, 2016). "Books: You Could Look It Up: The Reference Shelf from Ancient Babylon to Wikipedia by Jack Lynch". The Times. Retrieved November 11, 2016.
  9. Stavans, Ilan (October 21, 2015). "YOU COULD LOOK IT UP by Jack Lynch". Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved November 11, 2016.