Dr. Andrea Crestadoro (1808–1879) was a bibliographer who became Chief Librarian of

Manchester Free Library The Manchester Free Library opened on 5 September 1852 in Manchester, England. It was the first public library in England to be set up under the provisions of the Public Libraries Act 1850, which allowed local authorities to impose a local tax of ...

, 1864–1879. He is credited with being the first person to propose that books could be catalogued by using keywords that did not occur in the title of the book. His ideas also included a metallic balloon, reform of the tax system, and improvements to a railway locomotive – the '' Impulsoria'' – that was powered by four horses on a treadmill.

Biography

Andrea Crestadoro was born in Genoa in 1808 and was educated there before he studied for his doctorate in philosophy at the

University of Turin The University of Turin (Italian: ''Università degli Studi di Torino'', UNITO) is a public research university in the city of Turin, in the Piedmont region of Italy. It is one of the oldest universities in Europe and continues to play an impo ...

. He came to notice in 1849 when he left his position as Professor of Philosophy at the

to come to England to further his interest in mechanical devices. In England he took out a number of patents including improvements to the ''Impulsoria''. Impuls2

Crestadoro improved the design of an unusual device called the '' Impulsoria'', which was a mobile treadmill-powered locomotive. The invention was made by Clemente Masserano, who was from

Pignerol Pinerolo (; pms, Pinareul ; french: Pignerol; oc, Pineròl) is a town and ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Turin, Piedmont, northwestern Italy, southwest of Turin on the river Chisone. The Lemina torrent has its source at the boundary ...

in Italy. Following his improvements Crestadoro exhibited the ''Impulsoria'' at

The Great Exhibition The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, also known as the Great Exhibition or the Crystal Palace Exhibition (in reference to the temporary structure in which it was held), was an international exhibition which took pl ...

held in

the Crystal Palace The Crystal Palace was a cast iron and plate glass structure, originally built in Hyde Park, London, Hyde Park, London, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. The exhibition took place from 1 May to 15 October 1851, and more than 14,000 exhibit ...

in 1851. The power was transferred to the wheels using chains and a gearbox that allowed it to climb. It was said to be able to pull 30 wagons up an incline and could be used with two or four horses. Another suggestion from Crestadoro was to replace the paddle wheels or propellers on

steamships A steamship, often referred to as a steamer, is a type of steam-powered vessel, typically ocean-faring and seaworthy, that is propelled by one or more steam engines that typically move (turn) propellers or paddlewheels. The first steamships ...

with a smooth cylinder. He argued that the paddles or propeller blades were unnecessary, proposing smooth cylinders instead, which he suggested would gain traction by being immersed in the water. Crestadoro was given the task of creating a catalogue for the Manchester Library. He is credited with being the first person to propose that books could be catalogued by using keywords that did not occur in the title of the book. The system was called ''keyword in titles'', which was first proposed for Manchester libraries in 1864. This system was developed many years later as

Key Word in Context Key Word In Context (KWIC) is the most common format for concordance lines. The term KWIC was first coined by Hans Peter Luhn. The system was based on a concept called ''keyword in titles'' which was first proposed for Manchester libraries in 1864 ...

(KWIC) by

Hans Peter Luhn Hans Peter Luhn (July 1, 1896 – August 19, 1964) was a German researcher in the field of computer science and Library & Information Science for IBM, and creator of the Luhn algorithm, KWIC (Key Words In Context) indexing, and Selective ...

and was used in early computer based indexing.Manning, C. D., Schütze, H.
"Foundations of Statistical Natural Language Processing"
p. 35. The MIT Press, 2000 Crestadoro was an acquaintance of

Anthony Panizzi Sir Antonio Genesio Maria Panizzi (16 September 1797 – 8 April 1879), better known as Anthony Panizzi, was a naturalised British citizen of Italian birth, and an Italian patriot. He was a librarian, becoming the Principal Librarian (i.e. head ...

, Principal Librarian of the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

and he was employed as a reader there. Exasperated by the delays in the publication by the British Museum of a ''Catalogue of Printed Books'', Crestadoro wrote ''The Art of Making Catalogues of Libraries: Or A Method To Obtain In A Short Time A Most Perfect, Complete, And Satisfactory Printed Catalogue Of The British Museum Library'' which was published anonymously in 1856. The catalogue was to include 800,000 books but it had been in progress for over 20 years and consumed generous grants that had far exceeded £100,000 in 1853. Crestadoro published books on a number of subjects. His 1868 book proposed a method of dispensing with both gas and ballast by using a metallic balloon for flight. This too was exhibited at Crystal Palace in 1868.W. E. A. Axon, 'Crestadoro, Andrea (1808–1879)', rev. Elizabeth Baigent, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004 ;online edn, May 200
accessed 20 Dec 2010
At the end of his life he was publishing ideas for the fairer allocation of taxation. After Crestadoro died in 1879 it was discovered that there was a partly built glider in one of the Manchester libraries.

Works

*''The Art Of Making Catalogues Of Libraries: Or A Method To Obtain In A Short Time A Most Perfect, Complete, And Satisfactory Printed Catalogue Of The British Museum Library'', 1856 *''Catalogue of the books in the Manchester free library: Reference department'' *''Air locomotion dispensing with gas and ballast'', 1868 *''On the best and fairest mode of raising the public revenue'', 1876 *''Taxation Reform Or the Best and Fairest Means of Raising the Public Revenue'', Paper at the Congress of the

National Association for the Promotion of Social Science The National Association for the Promotion of Social Science (NAPSS), often known as the Social Science Association, was a British reformist group founded in 1857 by Lord Brougham. It pursued issues in public health, industrial relations, penal r ...

, Section Economy and Trade, Cheltenham, 1878

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Crestadoro, Andrea 1808 births 1879 deaths British librarians People associated with the British Museum Writers from Genoa Italian emigrants to the United Kingdom University of Turin faculty 19th-century Italian inventors Writers from Manchester