The lecture on the book culture of the 16th century shows that the problems of information overload arose long before the digital age. Through the figure of Konrad Lycosthenes, the discussion will lead to the structure of the early printed book, the search for knowledge, working with sources, and the methods of systematization without which reading large amounts of text would be almost impossible. It is most common to speak of information overload as a hallmark of the digital age, but people began to encounter an excess of information much earlier. The spread of paper, the development of printing, the discovery of new lands, and the increase in the number of texts in Latin and vernacular languages changed the intellectual life of Europe. Against this backdrop, the figure of Konrad Lycosthenes - a Basel humanist whose strength lay in the ability to organize knowledge gathered from various sources and present it in a form convenient for the reader - is particularly interesting. This lecture will be especially interesting for those who are passionate about the history of the book, science, education, and the culture of reading. The conversation will focus on how tools for searching and navigating within the text were created in the 16th century, why the layout of the page was an important part of meaning, and how compilatory works helped navigate the rapidly growing flow of information. Through the works of Lycosthenes, one can see that the work with data, classification, and the structure of knowledge has a long and very concrete history. A special place will be given to the books that made Lycosthenes' name known to the general public. Among them are "Chronicle of Wonders and Signs," a collection of stories about unusual and alarming phenomena from the Creation of the World to the time of the book's publication, as well as revised editions of the apothegms of Erasmus of Rotterdam and the bibliographical guide of Conrad Gessner. These examples show how models for describing books and authors' legacies were formed, which over time became familiar to European culture. The lecture is conducted by PhD candidate Mikhail Lvovich Sergeev - head of the Center for the History of European Printing at ORK RNB and associate professor of philology.