Cuneiform script
One of humanity’s earliest forms of writingThe proto-cuneiform script of the Sumerians, one of humanity’s earliest scripts, emerged in the late fourth century BCE as high culture developed in Mesopotamia.
Digital library
Information available onlineWith the technological triumph of the Internet and the associated rapid increase in electronic publications, the old library culture which had survived for millennia saw itself rapidly confronted by an unprecedented herculean task. Beyond local stock management in communal, university and other research and archive institutions the promise of a digital network raised public expectations of online libraries where access was not limited by time or location.
Digitalisation
The media world strives towards the immaterialDue to its widespread relevance, which affects almost all traditional communication channels, the process of digitalisation represents the conceptual keynote of the current media epoch. The switch from analogue to digital systems in the last 30 years has consigned numerous old media to irrelevance at breakneck speed while giving rise to others.
DIN 1451
Standardised font leaves its mark on everyday life in GermanyIn DIN standard 1451 of 1936, the DIN typeface was standardised for the fields of technology and transport. As the chairman of the DIN committee, from 1925 Siemens engineer Ludwig Goller was responsible for the development.
Division of labour
The A-Z of industrialisationDivision of labour is an important element in the industrial landscape. It involves a specialisation in the vocations (Businesses), the commercial sectors (Trade) and the sciences (Science).
Duplicating
The copier as a cultural technologyHectographs (gelatin duplicator) made it possible, as the name implies, to produce hundreds of copies and thus short print runs. In addition to this, various methods were developed from the 19th century onwards, to produce print templates for lithography, stencil printing and transfer lithography.
Dystopia: a world without books
A bibliophile’s nightmareFor bookworms, a world without incessant reading is unthinkable. Even the fact that the amount that can be read is limited by one's lifetime gave the German author Arno Schmidt cause for worry: "If we say 1 new book every 5 days," he muses in his book Aus Julianischen Tagen, published in 1961, "then this leads to the distressing state of affairs that one is only capable of reading 3,000 books in a lifetime."
Education
The A-Z of industrialisationEducation is developing one’s own personality. It is based to a great extent on attaining an understanding of the world, something that each person has to achieve individually, by reading (Journal, Newspaper) and writing (Script) or travelling (Travelling) and involves technical (Technology), scientific (Science), ethical and aesthetic (Ornament) aspects. Unlike vocational training, education is not driven by purely economic interests (Capital). Education enables people to transcend social barriers and has a powerful emancipatory influence.
Egyptian script
Hieroglyphs and other ancient scriptsEgyptian hieroglyphs are among the first written creations of humanity, a system which arose from an image script around 3100 BCE. Their usage in monuments, as a ceremonial script for veneration and glorification of gods and pharaohs, is seen within the sphere of the temples’ dominance, for example on buildings, steles, as well as items of ritualistic and everyday use.
Electronic Global Village
Global communication in realtimeIn his books The Gutenberg Galaxy, which was first published in 1962, Marshall McLuhan formulated his famous prediction that the world would become a global village as a result of increasing intercontinental networking.
