About The Mathematicians' Library: The Stacks

About The Stacks

This archive serves as the official dynamic companion and digital appendix to the book The Mathematicians' Library. The intention is to bring the imaginary mathematicians' library one step closer to reality by stocking these webpages to the gills with information and resources relating to every publication encountered in the book, and a few more that didn't fit. That might take a while, though.

The URL for The Stacks, library.mathsy.space is a subdomain of mathsy.space, which is where I keep links to some of my other web projects.

About The Mathematicians' Library

Whilst The mathematicians' library is an imaginary repository of every book that has contributed to the development of one of humanity's oldest and most creative disciplines, The Mathematicians' Library is very real and available from any bookshop that deserves the name (and the real, tangible sort of library too). In the real book, Tom has picked publications from the imaginary library's shelves and written about as many of them as he could fit fit into the word limit. Between the covers of The Mathematicians' Library exist forty thousand years of maths history told through its books. As a hardback book, lavishly illustrated with full-colour images all the way through, it's definitely one for any mildly nerdy (or just open-minded) person's coffee table.

📖 Read The Mathematicians' Library

The Mathematicians' Library Archive builds upon the historical exploration of mathematical texts in The Mathematicians' Library, by Thomas K. Briggs, so to get the most out of this site you'll need a copy of the book! Get yours at...

Bookshop.org →
Amazon →
Your local library!
Anywhere else good books are sold

About Thomas K. Briggs

Tom works with museums, galleries, and other heritage sector organisations to help them identify and communciate their mathematical connections to their audiences. If you're interested in this side of him you can find out more at tkbriggs.co.uk. Outside of work, he's a reader, a movie-watcher, a (very) amateur guitarist, and runs his local monthly MathsJam. He has also, along with his research partner Jason, set up the History and Mathematics in Education Network (HaMiEN). The HaMiEN aims to bring people together who are interested in exploring opportunities for history and mathematics to enrich teaching and learning in each others' classrooms (and elsewhere).

He's also the author of The Mathematicians' Library and the creator, developer and maintainer of The Stacks, and as it's very much not a paid position he'd be really grateful if you'd consider supporting the site in whatever way you can!

📡 Find Tom online

Click here for links to Tom's social profiles, professional website, blogs, and other projects →

Help to build the library and fill The Stacks!

The Mathematicians' Library: The Stacks website is an ambitious, ongoing project that requires a lot of my free time to develop. If you'd like to contribute to its continued growth, there are various ways you can support. These fall into three broad catehories: letting people know that The Stack exists; donating your time; and sponsoring my time.

Let people know about The Stacks

Spread the word! The more people who know about The Stacks, the more people will interact with it, and positive engagement provides some of the motivation required to add more books! You could, for example:

Talk about it with someone!
Share a link to the site (or your favourite page so far) in a post on your social media platform of choice. Include the hastags #Maths and #History, and consider copying in Tom.
Add a permanent link to https:library.mathsy.space on your website or blog. If this was accompanied by some explanatory text, a mini (or maxi) favourable review, or why you care about it, then all the better.

Donate your time

A workload shared is a workload reduced for each individual involved by a function dependent on the amount of time each participant is willing and able to spend on it (you get the idea). Ways you could pick up a (metaphorical) shovel and muck-in include:

If you are aware of a good quality resource or activity that would (a) help someone explore a historical mathematical text and (b) is accessible online, suggest it!
Pick a book that's featured in The Mathematicians' Library but doesn't yet have an entry in The Stacks and write a page for it (get in touch with me before you start to make sure I'm not already working on it - a workload replicated is very much not a workload reduced!)

Sponsor me!

One of the difficulties with expanding The Stacks is that whilst my enthusiasm for doing so is massive, none of the various financial commitments associated with merely existing in the modern world accept enthusiasm as payment. This means that updating The Stacks needs to take place in my (already limited) 'free' time.

Unless...

Sponsoring an hour (or more) of my time means that I can justify taking an hour (or more) out of my working day to add to this resource. Some options for this include...

... but if you've got another idea to pitch please do get in touch.

Even a small tip via [Ko-fi link] is helpful and sends a clear message that I'm doing something good, but purchasing books via my Bookshop.org shop will also send a small 'thank you' my way!

Beyond these specific ways of supporting the ongoing development of The Mathematicians' Library: The Stacks, general encouragement is also very much appreciated: finding out that someone has found something here useful or interesting and actively wants more of it is highly motivating!

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use these materials in my classroom?
Absolutely. All resources are free for teachers.

Roadmap

Here's a simple list of the books I plan to add to this website, and whether I've done so or not. See something you'd like me to add ASAP? You can help make it happen!

A MathsyDotSpace project by TeaKayB