The flood of information brought to us by advancing technology is often 
accompanied by a distressing sense of “information overload,” 
yet this experience is not unique to modem times. 
In fact, says Ann M. Blair, long before the modern era 
scholars complained of the overabundance of books 
and developed techniques for selecting, sorting, and 
storing information on a large scale. 
This intriguing book examines information management in premodern contexts 
with a special focus on the impact of printing in Europe 
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.