Jessica Morris

December 12, 2011

LIS 5033
Final Book Essay
Libraries and Societies
A library is an institution built by society out of necessity and desire that has had a great impact on
society throughout history. I will show how these institutions (libraries) and the information they stored
have had a great impact on the society that surrounds them and in turn show that society has an equal if not
an even more impact on the library industry. To help show how I will using the book Libraries in the
Ancient World by Lionel Casson. Lionel will help me show how libraries of the past even with little
material to work with have had big impacts on society and even the history we have come to know.
Information is all around us at all times so naturally this will be the first portion my examination of
libraries and societies. I will show how information was formed with writing system, materials used and
give different examples. Secondly, will be libraries as a whole; an exploration of the elements that make a
library with people involved, collecting, and organizing. To wrap up, my third portion of society and how
their growth in education and love had an impact on libraries.
Since the beginning of mankind there has been information in some form in the world. In history,
information has ranged from oral exchanges, paintings on walls, clay, and paper. The hard part with
information is trying to define what exactly it is. We can describe the properties, effects and behavior of
information, which is pervasive in our lives. (Lester and Koehler 18) The best way to identify what
information can be is by seeing if it is somehow informative and find representational characteristics in
examples like mentioned above.
The oldest form of information that can be traced farthest back is represented with pictures on walls and
with the start of the writing system. Egypt around 3000 B.C. is the starting point with forming symbols that
translate into words and meaning. (Casson 2001) Many records have been discovered of this beginning era
and these documents are mostly governmental recordings of taxes, book keeping and marriage contracts
because this at that time was important. Later, with the expansion of the writing system leads to an increase
of well-educated people. The alphabetic script that the Greeks devised, with two dozen or so signs capable
of rendering every word in the language, made the path to literacy quick and easy. (Casson 18)
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Whats writing without something to write on? The Egyptians developed a type of paper from one of
their native plants called papyrus which made a very fragile type of paper. Later, in 1100 B.C., both the
Greeks and Romans used Egyptian papyrus, because it was so easy to produce, and made them into strips
making what is known as rolls. (Casson 2001) The Mesopotamians took clay from their area to form tablets
that were found to be more resilient and became very popular plus cheaper during this time period that many
countries around used. And if you can believe it, the Greeks had used broken pottery as scratch paper. That
wasnt all though; wax and animal skins were sometimes used to jot things done with also. Later in Rome,
there was a decrease of the transport of papyrus, which left them to writing on leather but this helped
develop parchment material. This leads us into the Middle Ages when the codex, the modern book, started
to replace earlier forms of writing materials like the clay tablets and rolls. The codexs were being created
mostly of parchment but some with papyrus paper.
Traditionally, a collection, public or private, of informative material is referred to as a library. In ancient
times, they stored government documents like marriage contracts or book keeping for future reference.
These collections were mainly used for public nobles. Aristotle in Greece had a considerable collection of
knowledge as he called it, which represents a great example of a private library. Indeed, Aristotles library
itself almost certainly provided the inspiration for theirs [other libraries]. (Casson 29) Another influence for
collectors, big or small, was the growth of the scriptoria, a place staffed with people to make copies of
material. Collections or libraries early on were purely royal or private because of the cost of money to buy
from booksellers but slowly public libraries did emerged.
The most notable of libraries is the Library of Alexandria from 300 B.C. named after Alexander the
Great. One reason why it is so notable is because the library, embraced books of all sorts from
everywhere. (Casson 31) Men were sent out to purchase any type of book and bring it back to the library
for its collection. The rolls [collection] in the main library totaled 490,000, in the daughter library,
42,800. (Casson 36) This library was not only large but it also was one of the first to be open to the public
who fit the qualifications of education. Before this era many of the nations were small and only concerning
their independent cities. Alexander the Greats campaign brought all nations under one reign, his.

Any library established needs people to keep the collection in order, in other words, they need librarians.
This term librarians was not always used though. When libraries started clerks, teachers, religious figures
or volunteers maintained the library. Zenodutus was a pioneer in the library science. He followed Aristotles
example in how to arrange a collection. Zenodutus began by organizing materials by subject and
alphabetizing the authors. Others followed in staffing the library with people like sorters, checkers, pages,
copyists, repairers, and so on. (Casson 37-38) The Library of Alexandria was decease in being around 270
A.D. but the teachings it left lived on.
Leaping ahead in time to the Middle Ages, a monk named Cassiodorus, was another player in library
history. Cassiodorus founded a monastery where great emphasis was placed on learning and literature, and
he purchased much of what he needed for its library from northern Africa. (Casson 143) His background
makes him unusual coming from a wealthy family but this did not limit his enthusiasm for book collecting.
A monastery was a great source of books and many monks for Lent were given a book to read. After
Cassiodorus death, his followers established a scriptoria and had a form of interlibrary loan to help expand
their collection like he would have wanted.
A Society is defined as a population that is grouped together by location and is organized with
similarities. Any given society produces some sort of information whether it is oral or written down,
governmental or literary. It is natural for a group of people living in a community to conceive some method
of communication with each other. The more advanced the writing system and education in a society the
more information it will produce. Changes in the way information is recorded, stored, and accessed affect
the perception and use of that information and how it thereby affects the society. (Lester and Koehler 202)
Society once had kings that stride to have the biggest collection (library) of informative material of all.
All-powerful figures who could create holdings en masse by plundering the collections in places they
conquered (Casson 8) The import of most of these works mainly concerned royalty. These documents
contained what animals were sacrificed, weather events, and future predictions. Other documents found
were of vocabulary, names of gods, places and even musical hymns.
But not only did the king use these libraries but his staff did as well. Soon problems with thievery
appeared with the more use of libraries and to solve this problem the king called the wrath of the gods on
whoever was borrowing and not returning. Security was also enforced with guards. Some were not returning
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in time so the gods were also enforced to make sure material was returned on time and in good condition.
Here are some examples of what was written to try to enforce the rules of the library, He who fears Anu
and Antu will return it to the owners house the next day, He who fears Anu and Antu will take care of it
[the tablet] and respect it, and He who fears Marduk and Sarpanitum will not entrust it to [others] hands.
(Casson 13) In the Middle Ages to solve thievery or ensure that the material stays in their libraries they
chained some books to the tables.
The Greek society brought forth an age where information wasnt all academic but also literary. Greek
authors like Aristotle and Homer made dramas, philosophy, and other intellectual materials available for
society. Education plays a big role in these advancements in literary work we have grown to love. During
this time laws were made to enforce children to attend school to learn to read and write. Teachers were paid
very well to school children in this area alone. All of these intellectual progresses were a significant step for
the growth of both society and the library.
Mentioned above was one approach used to circulate materials with kings pillaging and sending out
servants to buy any material they could bring back. Others were giving books as gifts seen with Anthony
giving Cleopatra around 200,000 books and booksellers trading across nations. Also, I have stated above
with Cassiodorus purchasing books for his monastery from Africa and setting up a scriptorium at his
monastery. People privately collecting books would commission a scriptorium to copy works to fill their
own libraries and they would even recycle old government documents to save money by doing so. The
royals and scholars were not the only ones reading for fun discoveries have been found between villagers
with communications on which authors they have read and if they have copies of works they could send to
each other.
I will conclude with this last thought about libraries and the societies around them. From my research I
can say that libraries have impacted societies and vice versa. My perspective is that both of them depend
and have impacts with each other. We see how with the development of the writing system, materials made
and education. Where would the book be without the invention of papyrus or the codex? What about the
founders of library of science that help develop alphabetizing and organizing by subjects? The lovers of
libraries that have helped make libraries today. The author Lionel Casson takes a deep look at the history of
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the library and by his works we see how both society and libraries have grown together. Libraries have
made it easier to store information that society can have for future reference. And dont forget libraries
cannot be without the societies that help organize, support, and use it.

References
Casson, Lionel. 2001. Libraries in the ancient world. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Lester, June, and Wallace C. Koehler. 2007. Chapter 6: Societal Institutions for Creation, Distribution, and
Management of Information Chapter 8: The Impact of Information on Cultures and Societies.
Fundamentals of Information Studies: Understanding Information and Its Environment. 2nd Ed. New
York: Neal-Schuman Publishers.