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History of Libraries of the Western World
This edition of the History of Libraries in the Western World represents a substantial revision of the earlier edition, taking into account the "information revolution" that has swept the West since 1945 and the political revolution that swept across Europe beginning in 1986. In addition, recent scholarship has been incorporated throughout the text, with special emphasis on the work centered around the "new history of the book." The bibliographies at the end of each of the twelve chapters have been thoroughly revised to reflect the very considerable new work on library and book history.
312 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1984
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
September 1, 2019
I loved this book as it answered all of my questions.
I read some of the reviews and I must say I'm find them a bit odd. First, the book IMO isn't American centric. It goes through the history of libraries and writing all the way back to the very beginning of the Western world. I also like that they call it history of Libraries in the Western World with no presumptions made about what might be going on in the Middle East and Asia that also have very long histories.
I'm also surprised that many did not like the detail. I actually thought the way the details were written were far more relevant than other books of that period. He does actually go through each country at each point in history that is being referenced. It happened to be highly relevant for my point.
That some might find it dated depends on your purpose. This book comes from the 1950s and in fact modern for them would be from 1917 to the current. It's also highly important to realize that - according to the book, - we don't have a real nationally funded library system until that time. Hence, most of the book is about how we get to that, which is in the details.
So, now that we're done of with the defense of things, here are my notes for my own research:
P. 14-15 gives you a huge list of extended reading that also helps you understand the point of view of Harris writing this piece. He includes works about the History of Education, human records and record keeping, history itself. There is this sort of larger context Harris is trying to place the library as an institution within. This is awesome for me, because I too am attempting to do this in the field of data.
P. 24-25 He talks about the rise of the librarian as a "keeper of books." This individual had to be fully trained in what was held within the books. Unlike the librarians of today who are highly skilled at the field of the library and typically very well read, these individuals were thought of in terms of being the keeper of knowledge. The were super nerds. Very different....
P. 25 "the chief claim of the Sumerian-Babylonian Assyrian peoples to permanent fame lies in their contribution to communication. They developed a method of writing; an economical, readily available, and relatively permanent writing material; and a system of arranging and using recorded information in archives and libraries. Whatever the immediate purposes of the collection -- commercial, legal political, educational -- the ultimate result was the preservation of the records of civilization's progress in this particular part of the world..... Thanks to these records, each civilization was able to build upon the past." It's kinda beautiful what it means a library.....
P. 42 I'm glad he wrote about the fact that after the Assyrians this idea of writing died, as I was confused given other things I'd written. Specifically he writes:
"several centuries followed in which the peoples of Greece and the nearby islands seem to have had little or no written language. This period includes the era of Homer, when the Iliad and the Odyssey were composed and transmitted as oral epics for many generations before they were finally written down."
If you cross reference this with Phaedrus and the portion where socrates ain't a fan of writing, it makes sense.]
P. 46 They talk about the fact that the Books of Homer (or chapters as we now call them) arise out of a technicality. Around the 290's B.C. they decided to write these stories down, and basically the chapters fall relative to some dude tryin to fit it on a tablet. You know, little has been written on how the modern structure of writing got to this concept of paragraph and chapter. Or at least I am poorly read on this topic. This is really super cool to me.
P. 70, first paragraph talks about slaves and women working in libraries. It doesn't say explicitly, but I presume this means they can read... kind a cool.
P. 70 second paragraph, He talks about the initial division of books for the purpose of trying to find them. Latin and greek are split. Then later, there are some concept of subjects, but little is known here.
P. 70-71... we start to talk about censorship. The Roman government did get involved as a way of controlling knowledge in collections. These were not really pulbic so to speak, though. They also talk about moving books from one library to another and thereby nearly killing a town of it's knowledge. Kinda cool.
P. 107, there is a concept of interlibrary lending that is coming up as early as the 1300's
P. 109 we're still seeing that the librarian (a monk usually) is literally someone who has read nearly every book in the library. I like too this paragraph that talks about what that job was about:
"Thou must have full knowledge of what is given to thy charge. The first duty of a librarian is to strive, in his time, as far as possible, to increase the library committed to him. Let him beware that the library does not diminish, that the books in his charge do not in any way get lost or perish. Let him repair by binding books that are damaged by age. Let him know the names of the authors."
I mean, who isn't going to think of game of thrones with this sort of writing, huh????
Also P. 109 through the next few pages, they talk about libraries look like. Very narrow. 1 table. Lots of natural light where possible. Chains to tables for common books. Chains to bookshelves that reach the table. It's so cool.
P. 194, we're in the Americas talking about University colleges. Of course my alma maters are in here. It's amazing to see how bad the American University systems were in the early days, lacking books and really limiting circulation. That goes along with what I was reading on Freud's biography and his disdain for coming to the US to speak. (it's not the only thing with Freud, but it kinda tells you how far the American University system has come).
P. 198 begins if you're trying to get a real history of exactly how public libraries came to pass. There are also timelines on the internet on this. Possibly this was used as a reference.
P. 204-205, before there were libraries bookstores use to rent books. That makes so much sense given space of that time and also the expense of books then given now. I mean, in many ways we're moving back to that.
P. 206 I loved learning about the experiment of making schools the place where you have public libraries. That happens, but not in the format that they were originally trying to solve for, i.e. where to put the books.
"The school district libraries were a failure partly because of their contents and partly because of the way in which they were handled. They usually consisted of text-books, general works, and a smattering of inspirational literature, with little attention paid to their selection. The majority were above the reading level and beyond the interests of all but the most advanced students, and though they were theoretically available to the adults of the community, they were not widely used."
There is some further graft discussed on P. 2o7 of publishers taking advantage of contracts to push through books that no one cared about. It's fascinating and relevant even for businesses today. You have a service. It provides a good... or does it? Did you think about the end user?
P. 219, great summary of the chapter.
Library in History in chapter is really Harris's thought process on the nature of Library and what it's meant to society. He wasn't alive during the internet, so his conclusion is really beautiful and interesting. He sees the value of the library as an innovation to hold knowledge through the renaissance and allow for the period for the dark ages to spark the Renaissance. That is echoed in nearly every world history text book. He acknowledges the modern printing press. As the chapter goes on, he is worried about the size constraint as relates to space. That got solved by the internet.. tee hee....but he wasn't there to see it sadly....
I just realized from the review that was presented by Goodreads I likely read an earlier version. there is a free one with an almost identical cover on the internet that clearly pre-dates the invention of the database. Strange....
I read some of the reviews and I must say I'm find them a bit odd. First, the book IMO isn't American centric. It goes through the history of libraries and writing all the way back to the very beginning of the Western world. I also like that they call it history of Libraries in the Western World with no presumptions made about what might be going on in the Middle East and Asia that also have very long histories.
I'm also surprised that many did not like the detail. I actually thought the way the details were written were far more relevant than other books of that period. He does actually go through each country at each point in history that is being referenced. It happened to be highly relevant for my point.
That some might find it dated depends on your purpose. This book comes from the 1950s and in fact modern for them would be from 1917 to the current. It's also highly important to realize that - according to the book, - we don't have a real nationally funded library system until that time. Hence, most of the book is about how we get to that, which is in the details.
So, now that we're done of with the defense of things, here are my notes for my own research:
P. 14-15 gives you a huge list of extended reading that also helps you understand the point of view of Harris writing this piece. He includes works about the History of Education, human records and record keeping, history itself. There is this sort of larger context Harris is trying to place the library as an institution within. This is awesome for me, because I too am attempting to do this in the field of data.
P. 24-25 He talks about the rise of the librarian as a "keeper of books." This individual had to be fully trained in what was held within the books. Unlike the librarians of today who are highly skilled at the field of the library and typically very well read, these individuals were thought of in terms of being the keeper of knowledge. The were super nerds. Very different....
P. 25 "the chief claim of the Sumerian-Babylonian Assyrian peoples to permanent fame lies in their contribution to communication. They developed a method of writing; an economical, readily available, and relatively permanent writing material; and a system of arranging and using recorded information in archives and libraries. Whatever the immediate purposes of the collection -- commercial, legal political, educational -- the ultimate result was the preservation of the records of civilization's progress in this particular part of the world..... Thanks to these records, each civilization was able to build upon the past." It's kinda beautiful what it means a library.....
P. 42 I'm glad he wrote about the fact that after the Assyrians this idea of writing died, as I was confused given other things I'd written. Specifically he writes:
"several centuries followed in which the peoples of Greece and the nearby islands seem to have had little or no written language. This period includes the era of Homer, when the Iliad and the Odyssey were composed and transmitted as oral epics for many generations before they were finally written down."
If you cross reference this with Phaedrus and the portion where socrates ain't a fan of writing, it makes sense.]
P. 46 They talk about the fact that the Books of Homer (or chapters as we now call them) arise out of a technicality. Around the 290's B.C. they decided to write these stories down, and basically the chapters fall relative to some dude tryin to fit it on a tablet. You know, little has been written on how the modern structure of writing got to this concept of paragraph and chapter. Or at least I am poorly read on this topic. This is really super cool to me.
P. 70, first paragraph talks about slaves and women working in libraries. It doesn't say explicitly, but I presume this means they can read... kind a cool.
P. 70 second paragraph, He talks about the initial division of books for the purpose of trying to find them. Latin and greek are split. Then later, there are some concept of subjects, but little is known here.
P. 70-71... we start to talk about censorship. The Roman government did get involved as a way of controlling knowledge in collections. These were not really pulbic so to speak, though. They also talk about moving books from one library to another and thereby nearly killing a town of it's knowledge. Kinda cool.
P. 107, there is a concept of interlibrary lending that is coming up as early as the 1300's
P. 109 we're still seeing that the librarian (a monk usually) is literally someone who has read nearly every book in the library. I like too this paragraph that talks about what that job was about:
"Thou must have full knowledge of what is given to thy charge. The first duty of a librarian is to strive, in his time, as far as possible, to increase the library committed to him. Let him beware that the library does not diminish, that the books in his charge do not in any way get lost or perish. Let him repair by binding books that are damaged by age. Let him know the names of the authors."
I mean, who isn't going to think of game of thrones with this sort of writing, huh????
Also P. 109 through the next few pages, they talk about libraries look like. Very narrow. 1 table. Lots of natural light where possible. Chains to tables for common books. Chains to bookshelves that reach the table. It's so cool.
P. 194, we're in the Americas talking about University colleges. Of course my alma maters are in here. It's amazing to see how bad the American University systems were in the early days, lacking books and really limiting circulation. That goes along with what I was reading on Freud's biography and his disdain for coming to the US to speak. (it's not the only thing with Freud, but it kinda tells you how far the American University system has come).
P. 198 begins if you're trying to get a real history of exactly how public libraries came to pass. There are also timelines on the internet on this. Possibly this was used as a reference.
P. 204-205, before there were libraries bookstores use to rent books. That makes so much sense given space of that time and also the expense of books then given now. I mean, in many ways we're moving back to that.
P. 206 I loved learning about the experiment of making schools the place where you have public libraries. That happens, but not in the format that they were originally trying to solve for, i.e. where to put the books.
"The school district libraries were a failure partly because of their contents and partly because of the way in which they were handled. They usually consisted of text-books, general works, and a smattering of inspirational literature, with little attention paid to their selection. The majority were above the reading level and beyond the interests of all but the most advanced students, and though they were theoretically available to the adults of the community, they were not widely used."
There is some further graft discussed on P. 2o7 of publishers taking advantage of contracts to push through books that no one cared about. It's fascinating and relevant even for businesses today. You have a service. It provides a good... or does it? Did you think about the end user?
P. 219, great summary of the chapter.
Library in History in chapter is really Harris's thought process on the nature of Library and what it's meant to society. He wasn't alive during the internet, so his conclusion is really beautiful and interesting. He sees the value of the library as an innovation to hold knowledge through the renaissance and allow for the period for the dark ages to spark the Renaissance. That is echoed in nearly every world history text book. He acknowledges the modern printing press. As the chapter goes on, he is worried about the size constraint as relates to space. That got solved by the internet.. tee hee....but he wasn't there to see it sadly....
I just realized from the review that was presented by Goodreads I likely read an earlier version. there is a free one with an almost identical cover on the internet that clearly pre-dates the invention of the database. Strange....
April 12, 2023
I was required to read this for a course during my Library Science Master program. A very solid overview of the history of libraries and it will be an interesting read to any scholarship or hobby historian and library lover.
March 30, 2014
It's kind of your standard cool little history of western intellectual record-keeping - from Alexandria up to about Carnegie and the ALA. There is a pleasant - if a little dry - survey of monasteries and cathedral libraries leading into an early history of universities in the old world. I kind of dig stuff like that.
August 14, 2016
As a student of Information Science Libraries are kind of my thing but this book was sort of dry when it came to talking about the history of them. There is a lot of ground to cover with the history of libraries but it felt like this was just a long list of dates and people and places. If I hadn't been required to read the whole thing I would have probably put it down and wandered off somewhere.
January 7, 2010
This was a good concise history of libraries in the Western world. There was a lot of information in just the few pages of the book. There was also some information on the history of books in general.
May 4, 2010
I like libraries. I like history. So there's really no reason this book should have put me to sleep so often. :(
It's not all boring though, and it particularly gets better in the second half when it moves onto modern library history.
It's not all boring though, and it particularly gets better in the second half when it moves onto modern library history.
August 23, 2007
history,nonfiction,books
Read
April 25, 2010okay, so i just skimmed the chapters on 1400-1800. not exactly a history of cataloging, but interesting.
June 30, 2013
I like the book.
October 28, 2013
This book was assigned for one of my classes, and I enjoyed it thoroughly.
October 29, 2014
Outdated
December 17, 2015
LIS 604
This book: 280 pages (without notes)
Other book: 257 pages (without notes)
Other material: ~52 pages
Course total: 589 pages
This book: 280 pages (without notes)
Other book: 257 pages (without notes)
Other material: ~52 pages
Course total: 589 pages
February 2, 2016
the book was ok but for a textbook that is outstanding.
June 16, 2020
very detailed history of library
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews