The first library was a caveman putting a berry stained hand print on a rock and then lending it to his friend Ugh, so Ugh could study and try to imitate the concept. Libraries have come a long way since then, but the concept of putting gathered knowledge in one place is a primal desire. Around 3,000 BC, the first formal library was a collection of clay tablets with symbols that the Sumerians used to show how many camels Adiz traded for some guy's daughter.
Over the next couple of thousand years, more libraries consisted of documents made from papyrus or parchment. The Egyptians made papyrus sheets by gathering reeds from the Nile while trying to avoid becoming crocodile or hippo food. In Europe, Hans killed a goat or calf and used some of the skin as parchment to chronicle his living space. My hut is your hut. The great library at Alexandria was established in the third century BC. It held the pinnacle of knowledge from the ancient world, and the harbor's massive lighthouse was a beacon to folks far away. A beacon which allowed Julius Caesar, in 30 BC, to burn up the Egyptian fleet with a few errant sparks setting the library on fire. Centuries of learning went up in flames. Whoopsie! In China, Cai Lun, the court eunuch, had a lot of free time since romance was now out of the question. Instead, he invented paper in 105 AD. Paper was great in fostering burgeoning bureaucracies and the mind numbing statistical libraries that went with them.
When Rome fell and the barbarians used the books they found for toilet paper, meat wrappers and fire starters, accumulated knowledge took another nose dive. Thankfully, during the Dark Ages (candles were deemed an environmental hazard), a bunch of monks decided to kill time by copying biblical scripture and other ancient texts. They spent hours in cold, damp and dim stone garrets, and all they got for it was a lousy hair shirt. However knowledge was preserved and Christianity advanced. In the Muslim world, the House of Wisdom, the great library in Bagdad, lasted a few hundred years until the Mongol hordes showed up and destroyed all the books in a couple of days. So much for a cross cultural exchange.
As the 1400s rolled around, libraries had reappeared, but books literally cost an arm and a leg because each one had to be hand copied. A guy named Gutenberg (no one knows his first name) saw vintners using wine presses and figured if you could crush a grape you could print a book. Eureka! Movable type then created the mass paperback market and gave Tarantino the title for his movie Pulp Fiction. Gutenberg printed the first Bible, putting all those scribbling monks out of work. Some of their illuminated books would now end up in the remainder bin. Unfortunately Mr. G. had to print the first version of the Good Book in Latin, so most locals still couldn't read squat about Jesus. Then, in the 1500s, Martin Luther started the Protestant Reformation by having printed copies of his 95 theses slapped on doors all over Germany. Some leisure reading. Next, the Bible started being printed in English, German, French, etc. Things slow on a Saturday night in Wartburg? Read in German about all those demons being sent into a herd of pigs by Jesus. If Mr. G. had only gotten a patent for his press, his progeny would have been in the big marks for generations.
For the next few centuries, universities became home to the largest libraries of new books careening off the presses. However, there were still many individuals collecting books. Tommy Jefferson had a huge private library which he gave to the new American government. However, during the War of 1812 the British burned Jefferson's donated library to the ground. Sense a pattern here? Over the millennia, great public libraries sprang up around the world. Many had incredible architecture which was worth taking in even if you were illiterate or homeless. A lot of these libraries, that weren't bombed into oblivion in various wars, survive today (there's that fire thing again).
They say that for most of us, history begins when we are born. My library experience tracks with that. While growing up, many of my formative years were spent overseas. But I did go to small American schools, and the libraries we had provided enough books to keep the eyes moving. In elementary school, I favored Hardy Boy mysteries and Frank Baum's series on the land of Oz (I self-identified with the scarecrow). Later on, my high school was in London, so I spent less time in the library and more at the British Museum and the National Gallery. Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves. Then came college.
In the 1960s the University of Florida was somewhat a Southern backwater, but the main library rocked. It was a large brick edifice with a long reading room that had a huge vaulted ceiling framed by oak timbers. Rows of tables were adorned with art deco reading lamps; the walls sported arched windows and depression era murals. If you so much as whispered, the librarians, former nuns, would bang your knuckles with wooden rulers. I spent a lot of time in the library. Trying to study in the dorm was akin to reading philosophy while participating in a roller derby. The two didn't mix. At the library, I'd study for awhile, sleep with my eyes open, and then study some more.
Back then there were real card catalogs, and all available knowledge was confined to physical books and magazines. You had to brave the perverts in the stacks to track down the latest statistics on the gross national product of Peru. However, it wasn't all drudgery. All work and no play makes Jack (or Jill) a dull boy (or person of gender). One night in the library, while on hallucinogens, (what did YOU do in college?) I spent a couple of hours with a book of Canaletto's paintings, watching boats move up and down the canals of Venice. Better than the original Star Trek on TV. By the time I graduated they had microfilm readers and copy machines. I thought heaven had come down to Earth.
Fast forward to the 21st century. Having spent countless "challenging" years in the classroom as a college writing teacher, I still tutor said students in a library learning center. And what a learning center it is. Computers with access to myriads of data bases, most of them full text. Electronic connections to vast libraries all over the world. A dwindling collection of hard copy books. Amazing word processing capabilities that have now made typewriters retro chic for the same folks that buy 33 1/3 records and own turntables. Card catalogs are something that only the knuckle draggers knew about. As for being quiet, the old lady librarians with their hair in buns and who could shush with the best of them are long gone. Now the rules are that you can happily chat away with your buds but don't use a cell phone in the library unless it is an emergency or your significant other wants you to bring home fish tacos for dinner.
So as we move boldly forward into this more tech savvy and enlightened era, we don't need to fear the ignorance or volatility of the past. Right? Well, ISIS is burning Christian Bibles in the Middle East; the Chinese continue to destroy sacred Buddhist texts in Tibet and a protector of virtue in a small American town is about to consign Huckleberry Finn, Lolita and The Great Gatsby to some raging fire barrel. But, hey, You can still go down to your local neighborhood library and check out The Complete Idiot's Guide to Hinduism by Linda Johnsen. What a world!
Robert Matte Jr.