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Information science

A painted portrait of Christopher Columbus' son, Hernando Colón,

Christopher Columbus’ son’s universal library is newly rediscovered in this lost tome

Books

Hernando Colón was the illegitimate son of famed explorer Christopher Columbus. His love of books inspired him to attempt an ambitious dream: store all of the world’s books in one place. He summarized much of the information in his “Libro de los Epítomes,” which has recently been rediscovered.

London museum uncovers century-old recordings of family’s holidays

Arts, Culture & Media

Netflix to customers: Stop renting DVDs

Business, Economics and Jobs

America’s earliest recordings preserved and remastered

Arts, Culture & Media

The World Digital Library

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100,000 Volunteer Proofreaders and a Whole Lot of Books

Perhaps you, like millions of other people out there, have perused the books in the world’s oldest electronic library, Project Guttenberg. Founded in 1971, Project Guttenberg has put tens of thousands of books in the public domain on-line, on CDs, and on DVDs. But they haven’t done it alone. In 2000, an organization called Distributed […]

Why British Police Continue to Use Cassette Tapes

Arts, Culture & Media

The cassette tape has basically taken its place alongside the 8-track tape, and essentially vanished into the audio abyss. Almost. In Britain, there’s one group that still relies on the trusty cassette — the police.

The Half-Life of Facts

Scientometrics is the science of measuring science. It’s the invention of mathematician Derek de Solla Price. Sixty-five years ago, he was asked to store a complete set of “The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society” in his house. The stacks for each year’s volumes, he noticed, got bigger and bigger. On inspection, he noticed that […]

The World

Preserving America’s earliest recordings

Arts, Culture & Media

Richard Martin and Meagan Hennessey are the husband-and-wife team behind Archeophone Records in Chicago. Archeophone has rescued and preserved some of America’s richest recording history.

James Gleick’s Information Overload

Development & Education

What, exactly, is information? Is it an idea? The documentation of an idea? James Gleick explores these questions in his new book “The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood.” He joins us from Tampa, Florida.

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