Knowhow and economics. Publications on technology and industrial activities in Finland since the 19th century

Authors

• Panu Nykänen Jyväskylän yliopisto

Abstract

Finnish publications concerning technology and industrial activities have developed during the last two centuries along with the organization of technical education and the general need to modernize society. The overall volume of Finnish editions and journals has been low but the nature of the publications has followed the general European picture since the 1840s. In engineering disciplines, the nature of the publications differs from other scientific fields. In engineering, there is a general need to transfer technical information but the exact descriptions of industrial activities are largely missing from libraries. This is because of the inner nature of the engineering disciplines and because of the close contact between engineering and industrial production. De Solla Price’s idea of the existence of two separate masses of knowledge, science and technology, can be noticed in the publishing traditions of the technical disciplines in Finland.