Bibliography as Anthropometry: Dreaming Scientific Order at the fin de siècle

Csiszar, Alex

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/49316 Copy

Description

Title

Bibliography as Anthropometry: Dreaming Scientific Order at the fin de siècle

Author(s)

Csiszar, Alex

Issue Date

2013

Keyword(s)

Bertillon, Alphonse

Abstract

The 1890s saw an explosion of ambitious projects to build a massive classification of knowledge that would serve as a basis for universal catalogues of scientific publishing. The largest of these were the rival International Catalogue of Scientific Literature (London) and Répertoire Bibliographique Universel (Brussels). This essay argues that one widely influential but overlooked source of the enthusiasm for classification as a technology of search and retrieval during this period was the emergence of new methods and technologies for classifying and keeping track of people, and in particular, the criminal identification laboratory of Alphonse Bertillon located in Paris.

Publisher

Johns Hopkins University Press and the Graduate School of Library and Information Science. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

ISSN

1559-0682

Type of Resource

text

Language

en

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/49316

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2013.0041

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2013 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

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