The continuity I have in mind has to do with the nature of information itself or, to put it differently, the inherent instability of texts. In place of the long-term view of technological transformations, which underlies the common notion that we have just entered a new era, the information age, I want to argue that every age was an age of information, each in its own way, and that information has always been unstable. Let's begin with the Internet and work backward in time.

The Library in the New Age by Robert Darnton, historian and Director of the Harvard Library. A wide-ranging overview of the status of libraries in the modern world, touching on such subjects as: journalist poker games, French people liking the smell of books, bibliography at Google, news dissemination in the 18th Century, book piracy and the different texts of Shakespeare. Some responses: Defending the Library of Google, The Future in the Past and Librarians Need a Better Apologetic.
posted on Jun 1, 2008 - View this thread

22 basic suggested readings on the Middle East from history professor and informed commenter on Middle Eastern affairs Juan Cole.
posted on Mar 7, 2007 - View this thread

A virtual copy of Historiae Animalium, the first pictorial catalogue of the animal world (lots of pretty pictures, but the text is all in latin). It was compiled in the 16th century by the Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner, who is considered the father of zoology (and, incidentally, also the father of bibliography [Word Document]).
posted on Mar 6, 2007 - View this thread

Ottobib does what it sets out to do very well: take a list of ISBN numbers, the international standard book number system, and generates citations for you. It's as if it is automatically making bibliographies. (ha! get it!) Currently supporting the MLA, APA, and Chicago Manual of Style citation formats.
posted on Nov 21, 2006 - View this thread

What to read. A list of lists for book recommendations, includes a compiled "Great Books" Lists with a World Literature list and lots more.
posted on Mar 20, 2006 - View this thread

The David Foster Wallace Bibliography (in BibTex format) is ridiculously complete. The site also includes a zip file of DFW's essays and mp3s of a round table discussion. [via]
posted on Jan 10, 2006 - View this thread

Online papers on consciousness from androids to zombies, compiled by David Chalmers. Need a primer before you jump into the heavy stuff? See his Guide to the Philosophy of Mind. [via The Curvature of the Earth is Overwhelmed by Local Noise]
posted on Mar 3, 2005 - View this thread

Panopticon Lavoisier
posted on Jul 30, 2004 - View this thread