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This article traces the history of the relationship of papermaking and paper to libraries over time. Paper was first made in China and is traditionally considered one of that nation's four greatest inventions, along with gun powder, printing, and the compass. Papermaking was often associated with archives in its early development in China, as well as when it was introduced to Japan, where it came to be a part of some Shinto and Buddhist temples, and later governmental agencies. Under Islam, the availability of paper was linked to increased literacy and growth of libraries. In early modern Europe, before the widespread use of wood in the papermaking process, libraries and archives were part of an "economy of paper" with paper at times being in short supply. In the modern era, the world of papermaking did not intersect much with the world of the library, which made progress with the problem of brittle books, one of its greatest challenges, slow, though recent efforts of government, industry, scientists, and representatives of the library have produced positive results. The damage caused by wood-based paper in libraries was mirrored by the environmental damage caused by wood-based papermaking in communities. The history of papermaking and libraries demonstrates the importance of understanding the technologies which support the library, while also advocating effectively to the representatives of all its sources of support in ways which promote the values of the library and its associated community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This study investigates the earliest surviving Tibetan paper, from the Dunhuang cave library, using paper fibre analysis combined with codicological, palaeographical and textual information. The hypotheses tested by this method concern the regional origins and production centres of early Tibetan paper and methods for dating this material. Using overlapping typologies, we classify a sample of manuscripts into coherent groups, relating them to particular 'book cultures'. By linking three main manuscript groups to different geographical regions, we offer new insights into an important manuscript collection, and show that the method of overlapping typologies has the potential to yield further insights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For over 2000 years the manual craft of papermaking has been practiced all over the world utilizing a vabety of techniques. This review deschbes the evolution of hand papermaking and its cultural significance. Paper's evolution has been shaped by the structure and chemical composition of the fibers. Almost every aspect of modern papermaking technology has been foreshadowed by traditional practices. Such practices were passed down for many generations within families of papermakers. The main sources of cellulosic fiber evolved as the ancient craft migrated from its birthplace in China to Korea and Japan, the Islamic world, and then to Europe and America. Though most paper made today comes from automated, continuous production systems, handmade paper has enjoyed a resurgence, both as a traditional craft and as an art-form. In addition, traditional papermaking methods can provide insights to help in modern applications involving cellulosic fibers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a report from a November 14-15, 2013 conference in Heidelberg, Germany on the history of the production and usage of paper in the Middle Ages. Topics of presentations delivered included the digitization of Middle Ages manuscripts at the university library in Heidelberg, Germany, the methodology of paper production in the 15th century, and the history of European paper mills.

One hundred and sixty-nine fibre samples from books in the Korean collection and 68 samples from books in the Japanese collection at the British Library were analysed. A further 15 samples of Korean paper from a private collection were also examined. The analysis confirmed that most of the papers contained mulberry species (Moraceae family) as the main papermaking material, and other materials, such as hemp, rice straw and reed, which have been commonly known as supplements to traditional Korean papermaking. However, 15 Korean papers and one Japanese paper dating betweenad 1498 and 1798 appeared to include coniferous wood fibres. This substantial find supports a previous single find of a coniferous wood fibre in Korean paper. The dates of most of these papers containing wood fibres precede the use of wood pulps in European paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents research concerning the nature of web seams, their characteristics, bibliographic significance, and application to the analysis of books printed with machine-made paper made during the early nineteenth century. The collection of observations are meant to contribute further to comments presented in a paper by Catherine M. Rodriguez titled "The Use of Web Seam Evidence to Determine Format." The basic terms used in the making of paper by machine, such as wire, seam and web, are defined. Suggested systems for recording the incidence of seam marks and the possible application of seam marks to bibliographical analysis are discussed.

In the first four or five centuries of its manufacturing in Europe, paper was neither cheap nor available in unlimited quantities. Old rags, the primary material from which the paper was exclusively made, were a strategic commodity and trade with them was strictly regulated. Owing to their perpetual scarcity, as well as to the overall laboriousness of the papermaking process, a skilled master printer of the Incunabula period was hardly able to purchase a ream or two of high-quality paper for his monthly earnings. Consequently, the earliest printers had to rely on the support of ‘venture capitalists’ in order to secure steady supplies of paper. But the limitations of its manufacturing were not resolved by the end of the Incunabula period. Alas, the shortage and high cost of paper accompanied the development of print in Italy and elsewhere practically up until the advent of its industrial production from wooden pulp in the nineteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In pre-modern Korea, paper was renowned for its white glossy surface and cloth-like strength, becoming an important item in both tributary exchanges and private trade. The unique material of the tak tree and related technical innovations, including toch'im, the repeated beating of just-produced paper that provides sizing and fulling effects, were crucial to this fame. However, the scholar-officials who integrated papermaking into the state production system in order to meet administrative and tributary needs initially made toch'im corvée and then penal labor, thereby dismissing it as simple toil. They were not alone, though, in denigrating a form of manual labor. Historiographies of modern science and technology are generally silent about such work, focusing instead on how we invented the human out of drudgery. However, papermakers in late Chosŏn Korea (the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) chose to identify their artisanship with toch'im and eventually succeeded in securing recognition for that technique as a highly paid specialty. By examining this skilling of toch'im, this paper seeks to change the historiographical silence about toil. It overcomes the archival silence that accompanies manual skills by tracing toch'im's contours through its changing locations and associations in society's changing social and material networks, revealing paper artisans' social techniques, or everyday politics that eventually dignified their laborious technique. Paper artisans' changing relationships with tak barks, tools and facilities, central and local authorities, farmers, merchants, and scholar-officials reveal how such social skilling was made in late Chosŏn Korea, where papermaking became a most successful industry. This tracing of toch'im re-situates creative toil and everyday politics of artisanal hands in the interconnected transformation of social relations, craft, and knowledge practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that papermaking supported cryptanalysis's invention; that cryptology—meaning both cryptography and cryptanalysis—could not be practiced before the sustained production of paper; and that Medieval Arabic cryptology originated in tandem with algebra. Furthermore, this article posits that the regional Islamicate postal service, or thebarīd, was used to relay Medieval Arabic cryptograms and thereby shaped the substance of cryptology. These conclusions stem from examining ninth century to fourteenth century Arabic cryptology as a technology and relating Arabic cryptology to three other technological devices: papermaking in the Middle East, algebra, and thebarīd. Extant documents suggest that cryptology originated in ninth century Baghdad. This is because no cryptanalytical writings are known to exist before this period, and cryptology requires both cryptography and cryptanalysis. However, evidence of Medieval Arabic cryptology exists almost exclusively in practitioners' treatises, not in cryptograms or the working papers of cryptanalysts. To redress this barrier to historical research, I move from text to context, or from the ideas in the treatises to thinking about the technologies these ideas called for. Placing cryptological technology within the wider technological context that inspired, shaped, and confined its development suggests why cryptology originated in the Islamicate world, how Arabic cryptology may have been implemented in practice, and what enabled cryptology's start. I hope that this technological exercise encourages the study of the context in which Medieval Arabic cryptology developed, until further primary sources surface. Furthermore, I intend to demonstrate Medieval Arabic cryptology's relevance to cryptological history and Middle Eastern studies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An essay is presented in which the author discusses the history of paper making in the 18th century in Great Britain, focusing on the papers used to print the works of poet and illustrator William Blake, such as the illuminated book "Songs of Innocence." Countermarks and watermarks are mentioned, as well as paper makers such as James Whatman Jr., Robert Edmeads, and Thomas Pine. Paper mills, books versus pamphlets, and makers such as Charles Ball are also mentioned.

This article describes how papermaking emerged in medieval Europe displacing the traditional centers of the industry within the Muslim world. Ibn Marzūq al-Hafīd, a Muslim scholar, issued a fatwa on the permissibility of using European paper under Islamic law. The author contends the text illuminates Islam's evolving relationship with a developing Europe.

The University of Melbourne's Middle Eastern Manuscript collection housed at the Baillieu Library was acquired by Professor John Bowman in the 1950s as part of a teaching collection to promote greater learning of Middle Eastern culture and civilisation (Pryde 2007, 3). The collection is a rare example within Australia and represents many different subjects including Qur'ans and religious teachings, dictionaries and grammars, law, philosophical, medical, historical and astrological texts, love stories and poetries (Sloggett 2007, 89). Professor Bowman's main aim was to provide students with access to primary texts and so the collection was frequently drawn upon for research and teaching purposes. This paper however focuses on the information embedded within the collection. Under the surface, the manuscripts contain invaluable knowledge of the object's use, its manufacture and the original community surrounding the material. Through visual analysis of the papers within the text blocks clues can be uncovered to assist with dating, provenance and historical trade route information. This type of study can be problematic and is not without critics so the pitfalls and indications for best practice are highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current approaches to science-technology-society (STS) education focus primarily on the controversial socio-scientific issues that arise from the application of science in modern technology. This paper argues for an interdisciplinary approach to STS education that embraces science, technology, history, and social and cultural studies. By employing a case study of traditional papermaking technology, it investigates how the interactions between technology and science can be explored in an authentic societal and cultural context across a historical time span. The term technology-society-science (TSS) is used to represent an alternative approach to linking technology, society, and science that aims to redress the imbalance between science and technology, and to resolve the tension between two diverging goals of STS education. The educational implications of this alternative approach to STS education are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented which discusses several reports within the issue on topics including contemporary artist's archival assemblages and preservation of objects and documents that arrived with infants and history of paper production.

Disruptive technologies have been crucial to the shaping of publishing history. Paradoxically, while each of the technologies—specifically, the evolution of papermaking in Europe starting in the late thirteenth century, Gutenberg’s printing press and type-casting from metal in the fifteenth century, lithographic offset printing in the twentieth century, and digital printing in the twenty-first century—has, on its own, been indeed revolutionary in nature, together they have served their role in the evolution of the publishing industry. Simply put, the present publishing industry would not be where it is without them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides details of some significant patent, patentee and invention anniversaries falling in 2006, for example those for improved paper making and sugar production, Brunel, iron and steel manufacture – the Bessemer process, aniline dyes, an improved electric clock, air conditioning, an improved flying machine, and radio navigation for aircraft. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article presents a correction to the reference citation for the article "Making the Paper: Science and Technology in Spanish, Greek and Danish newspapers around 1900," by Peter C. Kærgaard published in volume 51, number 2 of the journal.

Examines the papermaking in New England before 1675. Analysis of the manuscripts of English polymath Sir William Petty; Evaluation of the trustworthiness of the Petty-Taylor memorandum; Epitomy of the document's level of accuracy.