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Birth of the Library

The First Shhh!

Areopagitica (by John Milton)
A Brief Outline of the History of Librar... (by Lipsius, Justus)
The Chronology of Librarianship an Intro... (by John L. Thornton)
Libraries and Founders of Libraries (by Edwards, Edward)
Memoirs of Libraries : Including a Handb... (by Edwards, Edward)

“Books contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are…I know they are as lively and as vigorously productive as those fabulous dragon’s teeth, and being sewn up and down may chance to spring up armed men.”

These words were written by the great author John Milton in Areopagitica. We’ve all heard the saying “knowledge is power” (I first heard it from Schoolhouse Rock!, but it can be traced back to Francis Bacon in Meditationes Sacrae saying “knowledge itself is power”). However, as clichés go, it needs restating in order to stay fresh, for oftentimes a simple repetition does injustice to the gravitas of truth. And so, we should also revisit the beginnings of the library and stored knowledge.

It makes perfect sense that the first notion of a library was formed in conjunction with the creation of writing. Once written words began to be stored and archived for later and repeated studies, the essence of the library was formed. The base structure for the library was created in Sumeria, when cuneiform was scratched into clay tablets and stored in temple rooms. Many of these discovered tablets date back to 2600 BC. In Egypt, the first recorded papyrus script dates back to 2560-2550 BC and describes the final years of the construction of the Great Pyramids of Giza.

Some of the earliest classification systems are thought to be from around 1900 BC in Nippur, a city of Sumeria, and 700 BC in Nineveh, an ancient Assyrian city. The first modern classification system is attributed to Parisian Jacques Charles Brunet in 1842. These early classification systems organized books by general subject matter.

Public access to information began with the Romans, who made scrolls available to patrons of the baths and established, with limited success, libraries throughout the empire. However, access to literature remained mostly a privilege of either the Church or the wealthy and/or aristocratic until the mid-19th century when public pressure resulted in libraries funded by taxes. Before that, entrepreneurs charged subscription fees for access to literature and reference materials. Subscription or circulating libraries maintained an evolving selection of works, particularly popular fiction, and sold books from their collections.

The start of libraries is the beginning of history (as everything before that is considered prehistory). We live in an amazing time where it is easy to see the convergence of history upon the present. And with such purview, we can get a glimpse of what libraries may be like in 100 years. With the recent years’ acceleration in information technology, online libraries like the World Library may rightfully be the hub of the future.

For books covering in-depth history of libraries check out A Brief Outline of the History of Libraries by Justus Lipsius, The Chronology of Librarianship: an Introduction to the History of Libraries and Book Collecting by John L. Thornton, Libraries and Founders of Libraries by Edward Edwards, and Memoirs of Libraries by Edward Edwards.

By Thad Higa