Tuesday, 17 March 2015

THE HISTORY OF LIBRARY

A library is not just a collection of books but also the buildings that house them. Libraries have a reputation for being so boring places when you visit only when its absolutely necessary. But they contain volumes of books that contains culture,science,technology,law dating  as far back as centuries.The collection written knowledge is a practice as old as the civilization itself. Many kings have made collection of documentation of culture and political matters during the century.

Gradually the repository came to be know as library. Authors have written books on various subjects and the copy shops have made copies of the books and some of the books have been donated back to the library. The idea of the library is born from the need of the people to document the written scripture. Many of kings and scholars have also sponsored libraries to increase the literacy. Copying books was a business in high demand where the trustworthiness of a book is translated into quality.


There are both public and private libraries. The private libraries of scholars like Aristotle are more significant than that of public libraries. This is because at one point of time the development in science,space and culture in Greece came to be depended on what depictions Aristotle made and his documentation of his findings helped us to study the cultural and political situations of Greece at  that time.

In earliest times there was no distinction between a record room and a library and in this sense libraries can be said to have existed for almost as long as records have been kept. The  history of library began with the first effort to organize  a collection of documents.The first libraries consisted archives of the earliest form of writing. The evidence of catalogs found in some destroyed ancient libraries illustrates the presence of librarians.

The library of Alexandria was the largest and the most significant great library of the ancient world. The library of Celsus   was built to store 12000 scrolls and to serve as a monumental tomb  for Celsus,Private libraries appeared during the late republic. Libraries are amenities suited to a villa fitted out for show by illiterate owners.In the west the first public libraries were established under the roman empire as each strove to open one or many that outshone the previous one.

One of the best preserved was the ancient Ulpian liibrary built by emperor Trajan. The structure was approximately fifty feet high with the peak of the roof reaching almost seventy feet. Unlike the Greek libraries leaders have direct access to the scrolls which were kept on shelves  built into the walls of a large room.The surviving records give only a few instances of lending features.In all recorded cases the books were kept in a relatively small room where the staff went to get them for the readers who had to consult them in an adjoining hall or covered walk away.



The ming dynasty in 1407 founded the imperial library, the wen yuan pavilion. Very large compilations appeared in 1725 and 1772. Christianity was the new force in Europe and many people saw Hellenistic culture as pagan. Medival monasteries began to accumulate large Libraries. Although most of the texts that were produced were christian in nature many monastic leaders saw common virtues in Greek classics.




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