list

thumb|Shopping list drawn in 1518 by [[Michelangelo for an illiterate servant]] thumb|1917 list of the top ten college football teams, in the opinion of a sports expert thumb|Laminated Depeche Mode set list A list is a set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of the list-maker, but lists are frequently written down on paper, or maintained electronically. Although lists may be made for entertainment, lists are "most frequently a tool".

==Purpose== It has been observed that, with a few exceptions, "the scholarship on lists remains fragmented". In 2009, David Wallechinsky, a co-author of The Book of Lists, described the attraction of lists as being a response to "an era of overstimulation, especially in terms of information", further asserting that "lists help us in organizing what is otherwise overwhelming". Philologist and literary scholar Lucie Doležalová has noted that "one does not read but only uses a list: one looks up the relevant information in it, but usually does not need to deal with it as a whole".