Comments on: What is a Book? Why is it a Book? http://electronicleaves.blogsome.com/2008/03/28/what-is-a-book-why-is-it-a-book/ Just another WordPress weblog Fri, 27 Nov 2009 16:48:53 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=1.5.1-alpha by: Tim http://electronicleaves.blogsome.com/2008/03/28/what-is-a-book-why-is-it-a-book/#comment-2 Sat, 24 May 2008 00:03:06 +0100 http://electronicleaves.blogsome.com/2008/03/28/what-is-a-book-why-is-it-a-book/#comment-2 Maybe the most significant change in the history of the book is the shift <a href="http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/scroll/scrollcodex.html" rel="nofollow">from scrolls to codices</a> (the codex being what we'd now call unambiguously a book). I've also been reading about Babylonian writing; one of the reasons it remained undeciphered for so long was the assumption that the sequences of symbols corresponded to sentences, while they were actually administrative lists, more like ledgers. The meaning of the sign, in some cases, was almost wholly determined by its position in space, i.e., inputs on the left, outputs on the right... Maybe the most significant change in the history of the book is the shift from scrolls to codices (the codex being what we’d now call unambiguously a book).

I’ve also been reading about Babylonian writing; one of the reasons it remained undeciphered for so long was the assumption that the sequences of symbols corresponded to sentences, while they were actually administrative lists, more like ledgers. The meaning of the sign, in some cases, was almost wholly determined by its position in space, i.e., inputs on the left, outputs on the right…

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