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History of libraries
The history of libraries began with the first efforts to organize collections of documents. Topics of interest include accessibility of the collection, acquisition of materials, arrangement and finding tools, the book trade, the influence of the physical properties of the different writing materials, language distribution, role in education, rates of literacy, budgets, staffing, libraries for targeted audiences, architectural merit, patterns of usage, and the role of libraries in a nation's cultural heritage, and the role of government, church or private sponsorship. Computerization and digitization arose from the 1960s, and changed many aspects of libraries.
The first libraries consisted of archives of the earliest form of writing – the clay tablets in cuneiform script discovered in Ebla in present-day Syria; and in temple rooms in Sumer, present-day Iraq. About an inch thick, tablets came in various shapes and sizes. Mud-like clay was placed in the wooden frames, and the surface was smoothed for writing and allowed to dry until damp. After being inscribed, the clay dried in the sun or, for a harder finish, was baked in a kiln. For storage, tablets could be stacked on edge, side by side, the contents described by a title written on the edge that faced out and was readily seen. The first libraries appeared five thousand years ago in Southwest Asia's Fertile Crescent, an area that ran from Mesopotamia to the Nile in Africa. Known as the cradle of civilization, the Fertile Crescent was the birthplace of writing, sometime before 3000 BC. (Murray, Stuart A.P.) These archives, which mainly consisted of the records of commercial transactions or inventories, mark the end of prehistory and the start of history.
Things were very similar in the government and temple records on papyrus of Ancient Egypt. The earliest discovered private archives were kept at Ugarit; besides correspondence and inventories, texts of myths may have been standardized practice-texts for teaching new scribes.
Over 30,000 clay tablets from the Library of Ashurbanipal have been discovered at Nineveh, providing modern scholars with a wealth of Mesopotamian literary, religious and administrative works. Among the findings were the Enuma Elish, also known as the Epic of Creation, which depicts a traditional Babylonian view of creation, the Epic of Gilgamesh, a large selection of "omen texts" including Enuma Anu Enlil which "contained omens dealing with the moon, its visibility, eclipses, and conjunction with planets and fixed stars, the sun, its corona, spots, and eclipses, the weather, namely lightning, thunder, and clouds, and the planets and their visibility, appearance, and stations," and astronomic/astrological texts, as well as standard lists used by scribes and scholars such as word lists, bilingual vocabularies, lists of signs and synonyms, and lists of medical diagnoses.
The tablets were stored in various containers, such as wooden boxes, woven baskets of reeds, or clay shelves. The "libraries" were cataloged using colophons, which are a publisher's imprint on the spine of a book, or in this case, a tablet. The colophons stated the series name, the title of the tablet, and any extra information the scribe needed to indicate. Eventually, the clay tablets were organized by subject and size. Due to limited bookshelf space older tablets were removed, which is why some were missing from the excavated cities in Mesopotamia.
According to the legend, mythical philosopher Laozi was the keeper of books in the earliest library in China, which belonged to the Imperial Zhou dynasty. Also, evidence of catalogs found in some destroyed ancient libraries illustrates the presence of librarians.
Persia at the time of the Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BC) was home to some outstanding libraries that were serving two main functions: keeping the records of administrative documents (e.g., transactions, governmental orders, and budget allocation within and between the Satrapies and the central ruling State) and collection of resources on different sets of principles e.g. medical science, astronomy, history, geometry, and philosophy.
In 1933 University of Chicago excavated an impressive collection of clay tablets in Persepolis that indicated the Achaemenids' mastery of recording, classifying, and storing a broad range of data. This archive is believed to be the administrative backbone of their ruling system throughout the vast territory of Persia. The baked tablets are written in three main languages: Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian. The cuneiform texts cover various contents from records of sales, taxes, payments, treasury details and food storage to remarkable social, artistic and philosophical aspects of an ordinary life in the Empire. This priceless collection of tablets, known as the Persepolis Fortification Archive, is property of Iran. A part of this impressive library archive is now kept in Iran while a major proportion is still in the hands of the Chicago Oriental Institute as a long-term loan for the purpose of studying, analyzing, and translating.
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History of libraries
The history of libraries began with the first efforts to organize collections of documents. Topics of interest include accessibility of the collection, acquisition of materials, arrangement and finding tools, the book trade, the influence of the physical properties of the different writing materials, language distribution, role in education, rates of literacy, budgets, staffing, libraries for targeted audiences, architectural merit, patterns of usage, and the role of libraries in a nation's cultural heritage, and the role of government, church or private sponsorship. Computerization and digitization arose from the 1960s, and changed many aspects of libraries.
The first libraries consisted of archives of the earliest form of writing – the clay tablets in cuneiform script discovered in Ebla in present-day Syria; and in temple rooms in Sumer, present-day Iraq. About an inch thick, tablets came in various shapes and sizes. Mud-like clay was placed in the wooden frames, and the surface was smoothed for writing and allowed to dry until damp. After being inscribed, the clay dried in the sun or, for a harder finish, was baked in a kiln. For storage, tablets could be stacked on edge, side by side, the contents described by a title written on the edge that faced out and was readily seen. The first libraries appeared five thousand years ago in Southwest Asia's Fertile Crescent, an area that ran from Mesopotamia to the Nile in Africa. Known as the cradle of civilization, the Fertile Crescent was the birthplace of writing, sometime before 3000 BC. (Murray, Stuart A.P.) These archives, which mainly consisted of the records of commercial transactions or inventories, mark the end of prehistory and the start of history.
Things were very similar in the government and temple records on papyrus of Ancient Egypt. The earliest discovered private archives were kept at Ugarit; besides correspondence and inventories, texts of myths may have been standardized practice-texts for teaching new scribes.
Over 30,000 clay tablets from the Library of Ashurbanipal have been discovered at Nineveh, providing modern scholars with a wealth of Mesopotamian literary, religious and administrative works. Among the findings were the Enuma Elish, also known as the Epic of Creation, which depicts a traditional Babylonian view of creation, the Epic of Gilgamesh, a large selection of "omen texts" including Enuma Anu Enlil which "contained omens dealing with the moon, its visibility, eclipses, and conjunction with planets and fixed stars, the sun, its corona, spots, and eclipses, the weather, namely lightning, thunder, and clouds, and the planets and their visibility, appearance, and stations," and astronomic/astrological texts, as well as standard lists used by scribes and scholars such as word lists, bilingual vocabularies, lists of signs and synonyms, and lists of medical diagnoses.
The tablets were stored in various containers, such as wooden boxes, woven baskets of reeds, or clay shelves. The "libraries" were cataloged using colophons, which are a publisher's imprint on the spine of a book, or in this case, a tablet. The colophons stated the series name, the title of the tablet, and any extra information the scribe needed to indicate. Eventually, the clay tablets were organized by subject and size. Due to limited bookshelf space older tablets were removed, which is why some were missing from the excavated cities in Mesopotamia.
According to the legend, mythical philosopher Laozi was the keeper of books in the earliest library in China, which belonged to the Imperial Zhou dynasty. Also, evidence of catalogs found in some destroyed ancient libraries illustrates the presence of librarians.
Persia at the time of the Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BC) was home to some outstanding libraries that were serving two main functions: keeping the records of administrative documents (e.g., transactions, governmental orders, and budget allocation within and between the Satrapies and the central ruling State) and collection of resources on different sets of principles e.g. medical science, astronomy, history, geometry, and philosophy.
In 1933 University of Chicago excavated an impressive collection of clay tablets in Persepolis that indicated the Achaemenids' mastery of recording, classifying, and storing a broad range of data. This archive is believed to be the administrative backbone of their ruling system throughout the vast territory of Persia. The baked tablets are written in three main languages: Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian. The cuneiform texts cover various contents from records of sales, taxes, payments, treasury details and food storage to remarkable social, artistic and philosophical aspects of an ordinary life in the Empire. This priceless collection of tablets, known as the Persepolis Fortification Archive, is property of Iran. A part of this impressive library archive is now kept in Iran while a major proportion is still in the hands of the Chicago Oriental Institute as a long-term loan for the purpose of studying, analyzing, and translating.