Robert Darnton Quotes & Sayings

“I believe we should celebrate new possibilities of combining the printed codex with electronic technology... The information ecology is getting richer, not thinner.”

“It simply is not true that everything is now on the Internet, but it is true that the digital resources available through the Internet have enormous potential for education and even for self-empowerment of individuals.”

“We need librarians who can handle this tremendous jumble of information that is in cyberspace.”

“I arrived from Harvard, where I had studied philosophy and the history of ideas, with a bias toward literature and formal thought.”

“Digital data are more fragile than printed material.”

“Texts are always in flux.”

“The American revolutionaries believed in the power of the word. But they had only word of mouth and the printing press. We have the Internet.”

“It's important to make clear to all the schools at Harvard the central role of the library.”

“People think that when you use Google you're finding exactly what you need, but really, you need expert help.”

“As a graduate student at Oxford in 1963, I began writing about books in revolutionary France, helping to found the discipline of book history. I was in my academic corner writing about Enlightenment ideals when the Internet exploded the world of academic communication in the 1990s.”