"The person figured here is not an autonomous, rational actor but an unfolding, shifting biography of culturally and materially specific experiences, relations, and possibilities inflected by each next encounter (...) in uniquely particular ways." (Lucy Suchman, Human-machine reconfigurations: plans and situated actions, 2009, 281)
"The perception of an overabundance of books led to more books being used in a great variety ways. Alongside the well-established methods of thorough reading and note-taking, which engaged the personal judgment and effort of the reader, early modern scholars also relied on shortcuts to “process” books so as to retrieve items of use with less investment of time and self. (...) The proliferation of inventive methods of and aids to study, whether unique to individuals or spread more widely through official or unofficial teaching, can help us understand better not only the conditions of production of early modern scholarly and pedagogical works, but also the deep roots of the ways in which we, too, cope with what we now call information overload."
