The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh's 300-year relationship with print on paper.
It is very likely that digital resources will be the primary source materials of the historians of the future. After 550 years, printing on paper is no longer the only means of information transfer. This paper summarises some of the new ways of digitally disseminating medical information before using the example of a Scottish professional society to show the importance of that extraordinarily successful method of information transfer - printing on paper using movable types. The paper aims to show how a seemingly simple, comparatively low technology, process has driven a lot of the decisions of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and provided a reliable means to document those decisions for over 300 years.
Milne
Iain
I
Library and Information Services, Royal College of Edinburgh.
D049670:History, 17th Century; D049671:History, 18th Century; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D007254:Information Science / Q000266:history*; D011327:Printing / Q000266:history*; D012577:Schools, Medical; D012606:Scotland; D012955:Societies, Medical / Q000266:history*