Cathedrals of Learning

Book excerpt: Cathedrals of Learning: Great and Ancient Universities of Western Europe provides a conspectus of the great Western European universities, pithily tells their life stories, showcases their architectural heritage, and describes the art, literary, and natural history collections they have accumulated over the centuries. This book profiles the ancient universities and their distinctive organizational cultures, reveals their customs, ceremonies, and traditions, their quirks and quiddities, recounts their complicated histories, describes their architectural wonders (libraries, museums, anatomy theaters, botanical gardens) and treasures (rare manuscripts, antiquities, paintings, and objects d'art of all kinds), and introduces their famous alumni, distinguished scholars, Nobel Prize-winning scientists, and famously eccentric personalities. It is a book for scholars, researchers, and anyone interested in these ancient institutions that remain centers of learning in the contemporary world. - Contains a collection of mini biographies, pen portraits of some of the world's most venerable universities - Offers twelve institutional biographies that can be used to compare universities and their complex histories - Written in an easy and rigorous style, with accessible coverage - Compiled by a leading figure in information science, with a wide experience of great universities and the trends with which they are associated