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The Medieval Librarian: Information Management In The Southwest German Empire At The Close Of The Middle Ages, Albert Winkler

Faculty Publications

The direct precursor of the modern librarian or archivist was the medieval scribe or notary. This person was responsible for the production or identification, storage, and retrieval of information and was the first information manager since antiquity to use vernacular languages in documents and books. The medieval information manager was highly educated and was often a prestigious and powerful official in whom important information and state secrets were entrusted. The civic secular scribes borrowed much from church practices but also worked out their own methods of source composition, verification, arrangement, and preservation. These procedures developed into many of the practices …