The Art of History and Eighteenth-Century Information Management: Christian Gottlieb Jöcher and Johann Heinrich Zedler

Abstract

In the eighteenth century there were enough printed sources and archival materials to challenge or even overwhelm historians of that day. Two productive editors of lexicons and information management were Christian Gottlieb Jöcher, who taught history at the University of Leipzig and became the chief librarian at his university, and Johann Heinrich Zedler, an eminent collector of biographical data. Jöcher published his multivolume Allegemeines Gelehrten Lexicon in 1750–51. Jöcher’s chief rival and competitor, Zedler, published and finished his 64-volume Universal-Lexicon in 1732–50. Both Jöcher and Zedler claimed much networking among other scholars. Some questions treated in this essay include the following: What characterized Jöcher’s and Zedler’s library and source management? In what ways is their viral work still of use and value to librarians and other scholars? Does revisiting old and dusty scholarship help us understand our own information jam?