28 Quotes by Robert Darnton

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.

As president of the American Historical Association, I started a programme to make dissertations into e-books in 1999. Before I knew it, I was involved in other electronic projects. Harvard invited me to become director of the libraries in 2007.

Digital data are more fragile than printed material.

My work has taken me from historical research to involvement in electronic publishing ventures to the directorship of the Harvard University Libraries.

While confronting the problems of the present, I often find myself thinking back to the world of books as it was experienced by the Founding Fathers and the philosophers of the Enlightenment.

We are living in one of those rare moments in history when things may come apart and be put back together again in ways that will determine the future for decades or more, despite the endless innovations of technology.

The idea of a national digital library has been in the air for a long time, and there was a danger that some people would feel that it's their property, so to speak.

The fact that I spend a lot of time in the 18th century doesn't mean I'm not concerned with the 21st.

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