I love this book!
It came out last year and the author makes unexpected choices. We learn about things we might not have thought of as documents, such as the AIDS quilt, but they do of course document something significant. He only includes well-known documents if there is an extra twist that we don’t already know.
The stories are so interesting! For example . . .
- Considering Alfred Nobel’s will, it is a wonder we have the Nobel prizes at all
- John Snow’s cholera map was really innovative at the time
- Fannie Farmer really made an impact with her cookbook
The author was a favorite professor of mine from when we were both at the University of Michigan. He is not an historian. His field is information science and so he wants to know how a document got written. Who wrote it? How did it come to be? As he says, “I look at the world through information-colored glasses.”
In addition, the author brings up issues to ponder around documents such as . . .
- What does it mean to be an author?
- Documents that don’t exist can have a great impact
- The changing nature of document formats, especially going from physical items to digital versions
There also are a couple of recorded book talks available, which were given after the book was published. Janes includes some information that was not in the book, especially, there are more pictures! He prompts us to consider more issues around power and questions such as how are we recorded and documented now and by whom?
Check out the book talks here:
More Resources
- Brief interview from the University of Washington
- Check out the podcast that preceded the book