Organizing knowledge in the Isis bibliography from Sarton to the early twenty-first century.

This essay explores various ways in which bibliographies have exhibited "sociality." Bibliographies are both products of the social contexts that have created them and engines of social interaction in scholarly communities. By tracing the history of the Isis Bibliography, the longest-running and most comprehensive bibliography in its field, this essay explains how different Isis classification systems have been tied to major twentieth-century cataloging efforts. By looking at classification, the essay also attends to the ways in which aspects of the Isis Bibliography in different decades have reflected social mores of their period. Finally, it demonstrates how critical the Isis Bibliography was in the formation of the discipline of history of science and goes on to discuss how that disciplinary connection is evolving in the twenty-first century. By thinking of the bibliography as a network of scholars, not just scholarly works, the essay asks us to reflect on the nature and purpose of bibliography in the digital age.

Organization of knowledge and the complex identity of history of science.

History of science as a formal and autonomous field of research crosses over disciplinary boundaries. For this reason, both its production and its working materials are difficult to classify and catalog according to discipline-based systems of organization of knowledge. Three main problems might be pointed out in this regard: the disciplines themselves are subject to a historical process of transformation; some objects of scientific inquiry resist constraint within rigid disciplinary grids but, rather, extend across several disciplinary boundaries; and the so-called digital revolution has replaced spatial with temporal display sequences and shifted the traditional emphasis on knowledge to user-oriented approaches. The first part of this essay is devoted to a conceptual analysis of the various approaches to the organization of knowledge formulated over time, whereas the second considers the new possibilities afforded by a faceted model of knowledge organization compatible with user-oriented relational databases to the research materials and production of history of science.

The organization and description of science archives in America.

The creation of science archives, the historical study of modern science, and major changes in archival practice roughly coincided in the 1950s and 1960s. This has allowed science archives to respond to contemporary issues in the history of science. It has also allowed them to develop as an integral part of the revolution in archival practice since that time, adopting international archival standards that make science archives more accessible to researchers. We are now on the cusp of new technologies and approaches that promise to make a sizable number of collections available online for the first time. This essay describes the development of modern archival principles and practices and discusses the impact they are having on science collections.

Byzantine medical manuscripts: towards a new catalogue, with a specimen for an annotated checklist of manuscripts based on an index of Diels' Catalogue.

Greek manuscripts containing medical texts were inventoried at the beginning of the 20th century by a team of philologists under the direction of Hermann Diels. The resulting catalogue, however useful it was when new and still is today, needs to be updated not only because some manuscripts have been destroyed, certain collections and single items have changed location, new shelfmark systems have been sometimes adopted and cataloguing has made substantial progress, but also because in Diels' time the concept of ancient medicine was limited, the method used in compiling data was not standardized and, in a time of manual recording and handling of information, mistakes could not be avoided. The present article is an introduction to a new catalogue of Greek medical manuscripts. In the first part, it surveys the history of the heuristic and cataloguing of Greek medical manuscripts from the 16th century forward; in the second part, it highlights the problems in Diels' catalogue and describes the genesis and methods of the new catalogue, together with the plan for its completion; and in the third part, it provides a sample of such a new catalogue, with a list of the Greek medical manuscripts in the libraries of the United Kingdom and Ireland.

["Let these things speak for themselves". Experiment kits, instruction manuals, and narratives between 1870 and 1930]. / "Man lasse doch diese Dinge selber einmal sprechen". Experimentierkästen, Experimentalanleitungen und Erzählungen zwischen 1870 und 1930.

Experiment kits, such as physical cabinets, chemistry sets, and electricity kits designed for amateurs and children, gained huge popularity in Germany around 1900. These home laboratories connected themselves to the things of everyday life as objects of investigation and everyday knowledge as their framework of reference. In the previous centuries, portable laboratories had already accompanied travelling scientists and intellectuals. Experiment kits however, while still portable, were designed to serve as extensions of classrooms and lecture halls. The kits--available through teaching materials catalogues and early forms of mail-order catalogues--illustrate the increased attention that was given to experimental practices in general education between 1870 and 1930. An examination of these objects, which consisted of instruments, substances, and supplementary contents arranged in wooden, metal, or paper boxes, together with an analysis of their instruction manuals, shows how the miniature laboratories structured the spaces within which experiments were supposed to take place.

The medical film 1897-1997: Part II. The second half-century.

Following the reluctance of teachers to use film for undergraduate and postgraduate medical education up until the Second World War, the active promotion of medical films after the war was encouraged by the production of catalogues of films available and the publication of medical film reviews both in journals and in books. This resulted in an increased use of films in the three decades following the war until videorecordings began to take their place and film projection is now a rarity in centres of medical education.

[Revealing the history of apothecaries, pharmaceuticals and pharmacies in Catalunya: the library of the apothecary Joan Sardeñons: an example of the possibilities and difficulties of research]. / Divulgació de la història d'apotecaris, apotecaries, farmacèutics i farmàcies a Catalunya: la biblioteca de l'apotecari Joan Sardeñons: un exemple de possibilitats i de dificultats d'estudi.

The author takes the catalogue of the library of the major pharmacist Joan Sardeñons as an example. This inventory was in the Hospital of Santa Creu i Sant Pau. Due to the low specialization of cataloguers, a high percent of the volumes are wrongly identified. The author states that the best way to understand this matter, is to study deeper, as professional as scientifically, the inventories used by the pharmacists.

From Index Catalogue to Gopher space: changes in our profession as reflected in the Handbook and CPHSL.

A fifty-year review of the history of health sciences librarianship, as reflected in four editions of the Handbook of Medical Library Practice and its successor, Current Practice in Health Sciences Librarianship, illustrates the significant changes our profession has undergone. Publication in 1943 of the first edition of the Handbook marked an important milestone in the development of the Medical Library Association, as a group of dedicated volunteers documented standard practice and recorded useful data. Administration of health sciences libraries has moved from art to science. Responsibility for the development of collections is now the sole purview of professional librarians. Automation and bibliographic standards have revolutionized the methods for controlling and providing access to information resources. And, the means by which assistance is provided to library users, through the use of computer and telecommunications technology, has changed dramatically.

Mechanization of library procedures in a medium-sized medical library: XVI. Computer-assisted cataloging, the first decade.

After ten years of experimentation in computer-assisted cataloging, the Washington University School of Medicine Library has decided to join the Ohio College Library Center network. The history of the library's work preceding this decision is reviewed. The data processing equipment and computers that have permitted librarians to explore different ways of presenting cataloging information are discussed. Certain cataloging processes are facilitated by computer manipulation and printouts, but the intellectual cataloging processes such as descriptive and subject cataloging are not. Networks and shared bibliographic data bases show promise of eliminating the intellectual cataloging for one book by more than one cataloger. It is in this area that future developments can be expected.

John Shaw Billings as a Bibliographer.

The influences that a man's childhood have on his life are, it is well known, great. Life is essentially a part of the things that happen to the individual and it is the manner in which one relates oneself to these things that determines what one is. With these facts in mind this study of John Shaw Billings as a bibliographer has been approached. His early life has been reviewed as an influence on his later achievements. Stress has been placed on those events which led to his bibliographic activities.Dr. Billings was prolific in many fields. Others have given detailed analyses of his writings (1, 2). The present study will consider only his bibliographic works. The description of these follows the brief outline of his childhood and youth.