Johann David Köhler

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Johann David Köhler (1684–1755) might be considered a great grandfather of information science and a grandfather of library science. Köhler was born in Colditz in 1684 and died in Göttingen, Germany in 1755. He was a professor of logic and history at universities in Altdorf and later Göttingen and served briefly as university librarian at Altdorf. His academic focuses were on Roman coins as historical artifacts, ancient weapons, and genealogy.

Köhler came into scholarly prominence in a transitional period for European scholarship. From the Middle Ages and into the Enlightenment, European scholars were part of a "common culture of scholarship", a respublica litteraria (Eskildsen 2005: 421). That common culture of scholarship was subjected to a series of nationalistic and religious pressures across the eighteenth century so that as Köhler came into prominence in the eighteenth century, there had been a shift from the pan-European imagined community to a more parochial nationalist one (Anderson 1991).

His credentials as a library and information scientist are based upon three of his monographs: Syllogie aliquot Scriptorum de bene ordinanda et ornanda Bibliotheca, published in 1728; Hochverdiente und aus bewährten Urkunden wohlbeglaubte Ehren-Rettung Johann Guttenbergs, eingebohrnen Bürgers in Mayntz in 1741; and Anweisung für reisende Gelerte, Bibliothecken, Műnz-Cabinette, Antiquitäten-Zimmer, Bilder-Sale, Naturalien- und Kunst-Kammern, u.d.m mit Nutzen zubesehen from 1762. The 1728 Syllogie… is a bibliographic examination of major history texts of the day and is in keeping with the role of historians then and now. The 1741 Hochverdiente… is an examination of the assertion that Johann Gutenberg was indeed the inventor of movable print – the printing press – against competing claims. Bernhard von Mallinckrodt (1591-1664) is credited with writing the first defense of Gutenberg as the inventor of the printing press in 1639 (Schmidmaier 2001), but Köhler is said to have authored second and definitive defense (Eck 2000). Köhler's third and most important work within this context is the 1792 Anweisung für reisende Gelerte, Bibliothecken, Műnz-Cabinette, Antiquitäten-Zimmer, Bilder-Sale, Naturalien und Kunst-Kammern, u.d.m mit Nutzen zubesehen.

Finally, Köhler published a scholarly journal on Roman coins and numismatics in general. His son Johann Tobias Köhler continued that interest. This journal is important to library science in that it is among the first true serials ever published.

[edit] References

  • Anderson, Benedict (1991). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed. London: Verso.
  • Eck, Reimer (2000) "Drei Schritte Göttinger Frühdruckforchung, Johann David Köhlers 'Ehren-Rettung Johann Guttensberg', Karl Dziatzkos Wiederbelebung der Gutenberforshung, Elmar Mittlers Digitalisjerung der Göttinger Schlüsseldokumente zur Erforschung des Frühdrucks", in Köhler, Johann David (1741, reprint 2000), Hochverdiente und aus bewährten Urkunden wohlbeglaubte Ehren-Rettung Johann Guttenbergs, eingebohrnen Bürgers in Mayntz…, with afterword by Reimer Eck. Munich: Saur, pp. 109-121.
  • Eskildsen, Kaspar (2005) "How Germany Left the Republic of Letters", Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 65, 3, pp. 421-432.
  • Schmidmaier, Dieter (2001) "Johann David Köhlers Verdienst", Bibliothek Forschung und Praxis, vol. 25, 2, pp. 253-255
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