History

Questions

1. What was the usage of the book at first?
2. How was book printing developed?
3. How and why was typography and writing developed?
4. what kind of techniques where developed for printing books?
5. Are there different formats of books in history?
6. What is the history of monasteries, in relation to the development of books?
7. What was the influence of books like the bible?
8. What is the Asian history of books and techniques?
9. What are the most famous writers?
10. Number of books in different eras?
11. When was the first library built?
12. When were the first audiobooks introduced?

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Discussion

Origin

When writing systems were invented in ancient civilizations, nearly everything that could be written upon—stone, clay, tree bark, metal sheets—was used for writing.In China,silk was also a base for writing. Writing was done with brushes. Many other materials were used as bases: bone, bronze, pottery, shell, etc.Any material which will hold and transmit text is a candidate for books.

The book is also linked to the desire of humans to create lasting records. Stones could be the most ancient form of writing, but wood would be the first medium to take the guise of a book. The words biblos and liber first meant "fibre inside of a tree". In Chinese, the character that means book is an image of a tablet of bamboo.

Different formats of books

• Clay tablets

Clay tablets were used in Mesopotamia in the third millennium BC. The calamus, an instrument in the form of a triangle, was used to make characters in moist clay. The tablets were fired to dry them out. At Nineveh, 22,000 tablets were found, dating from the seventh century BC; this was the archive and library of the kings of Assyria, who had workshops of copyists and conservationists at their disposal. This presupposes a degree of organization with respect to books, consideration given to conservation, classification, etc.

• Wax tablets

Romans used wax-coated wooden tablets upon which they could write and erase by using a stylus. Usually these tablets were used for everyday purposes (accounting, notes) and for teaching writing to children.Several of these tablets could be assembled in a form similar to a codex.

• Papyrus

Papyrus is made by extracting the marrow from the stems, followed by steps of humidification, pressing, drying, gluing, and cutting. Papyrus books were in the form of a scroll of several sheets pasted together, for a total length of up to 10 meters or even more.

Many papyrus texts come from tombs, where prayers and sacred texts were deposited.This demonstrates that the development of the book, in its material makeup and external appearance, depended on a content dictated by political and religious values.

• Parchment

Parchment progressively replaced papyrus. Its production began around the third century BC. Made using the skins of animals, parchment proved easier to conserve over time; it was more solid, and allowed one to erase text. It was a very expensive medium because of the rarity of material and the time required to produce a document.

Religious role of books

In early western, books are largely developed along with the spreading of religions, or say, at that time, books are mainly created for religious purpose.

Monasteries

A number of Christian books were destroyed at the order of Diocletian in 304 CE. During the turbulent periods of the invasions, it was the monasteries that conserved religious texts and certain works of Antiquity for the West.

The role of monasteries in the conservation of books is not without some ambiguity.
Reading was an important activity in the lives of monks, which can be divided into prayer. It was therefore necessary to make copies of certain works. There therefore existed "scriptoria" in many monasteries, where manuscripts where monks copied and decorated manuscripts that had been preserved.
However, the conservation of books was not exclusively in order to preserve ancient culture; it was especially relevant to understanding religious texts with the aid of ancient knowledge. Some works were never recopied, having been judged too dangerous for the monks. Moreover, in need of blank media, the monks scraped off manuscripts, thereby destroying ancient works. The transmission of knowledge was centered primarily on sacred texts.

Other general information

Library

In a traditional sense, Library means a collection of books. The prosperity of books led to the appearance of library.A library is a collection of information resources and services, organized for use, and maintained by a public body, institution, or private individual.But nowadays, a library is for storing information in the form of not only books, but also microfilm, microfiche, audio tapes, CDs, LPs, cassettes, video tapes and DVDs, etc.
Private or personal libraries made up of non-fiction and fiction books, first appeared in classical Greece. The first ones appeared some time near the 5th century BC.The spread of books, and attention to their cataloging and conservation, as well as literary criticism developed during the Hellenistic period with the creation of large libraries in response to the desire for knowledge exemplified by Aristotle.For example,The Library of Alexandria, a library created by Ptolemy Soter and set up by Demetrios of Phaleron. It contained 500,900 volumes (in the Museion section) and 40,000 at the Serapis temple (Serapeion).

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Source

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_book/