Book Section

Author

Kirsop, Wallace

Title

Scientific information in nineteenth century Australia: a note on sources

In

Some sources for the history of Australian science: six papers presented at a workshop on the history of science in Australian Academy of Science, 24-25 August 1982

Editor

Borchardt, D. H.

Imprint

History Project Incorporated, Kensington, 1984, pp. 1-14

ISBN/ISSN

0949776181

Subject

History of Australian Science - General

Description

Historical bibliography monograph, no. 12. Wallace Kirsop (1933-2026) was one of Australia's most distinguished scholars of French studies and book history, a pioneering academic at Monash and a tireless advocate for libraries and rare book collections. Over a career spanning more than six decades, he transformed the study of books in Australia and helped establish the intellectual foundations of rare books, special collections and bibliographical scholarship throughout the country. Source: Monash University Archives.

Abstract

Is is obvious to the point of triteness to note that since the earliest European settlement in the Australian continent rapid and reliable access to information of all sorts has been a perennial problem for both the general public and for the scientific and scholarly communities. While the difficulties may now lie in obtaining the latest translations of articles in Russian or enough money to subscribe to various international computerized data bases, the obstacle once consisted in the· deprivation determined by remoteness from publishing and research centres in the Northern Hemisphere. Distance in this case equalled delay, for example three months or more of sailing time as late as the 1850s. Even though regular mail steamers were to make deliveries more than twice as fast by the 1880s, we have to remember both that, despite all the technical innovations since the telegraph link with Europe in 1872, we are still forced to select and digest information for relatively expensive modes of transmission, and that in the 1980s there has been a regression in the efficiency of surface mail services, on which we depend for the arrival of the mass of general and specialized monographs and serials. Such material considerations cannot be ignored by the social historian of ideas, and since I am writing he.re in that capacity, more precisely as a book trade historian, I propose to keep firmly in mind the concrete limits time and place imposed on professionals and laymen seeking to be and to remain informed about scientific discoveries, theories and debates.

Source

Carlson 1984

Related Published resources

isPartOf

• Borchardt, D. H. ed., Some sources for the history of Australian science: six papers presented at a workshop on the history of Australian science organized by the Australian academy of Science. 24-25 August 1982 (Kensington, N.S.W.: History Project Incorporated, 1984), 81 pp. Details