Egyptian Books Were 35ft. Long

Radio Record, Volume VII, Issue 10, 15 September 1933, Page 42

Egyptian Books Were 35ft. Long

Earliest Books Date Back to the Flood-A Library With a Staii of s00- ". Libraries are Considered Part of the Educational System Abroad.

Me. A, D. McINTOSH, M.A., of the staff of the Parliamentary Library, recently returned to New Zealand after a year spent abroad as the holder of a Carnegie Library Fellowship, and is'at. present giving from 2YA a series of :talks on "Libraries, Ancient and Modern." Mr. McIntosh has written the following brief account of what he is doing in these talks. OOKS and libraries are as old as civilisation itself. It is not too much to say that without them there would have been no civilisation, The greatest service performed by libraries through the ages has lain in their preservation of learning. To-day their task is greater and it is with the spread of knowledge that they are principally concerned. In these talks I hope to give a brief survey of libraries in both the ancient and the modern world, I hope to notice not only books themselves and the main types of libraries that have existed from age to age, but also to indicate, however briefly, the part libraries have played in the survival and spread of knowledge. In the third lecture modern developments will occupy our attention- particularly American and English as I saw them abroad and finally I will give some account of the modern movement to establish national library systems and perhaps give an idea of a plan for the future of our own libraries in New Zealand. * 2 QuUR earliest books are in the form of baked clay tablets dating back almost to the Flood. They have been discovered in the ruins of ancient palaces and temples. Books have changed their form as new materials became available. The Egyptian book was a roll of papyrus-sometimes 385 feet long-a material made from the stems of a river plant growing in the Nile; parchment, made from the skins of animals, also in the form of a roll was used for books in Palestine. In the 4th century came the modern form of a book-in vellum-and throughout the middle ages illuminated manuscripts of the most beautiful workmanship were produced by the works. Paper and printing date from the 15th century and thence the modern book, Toflay we have gone a step further. To Save space, great modern libraries reduce the print of unwieldly newspaper files to microscopic size on smal! rolls of film and when required for use these films are put through a projector and thrown in lurge size on to a screen or on toa student’s desk. And that may be only a beginning of the application of modern science to bogks and library methods. A great American librarian recently stated that in a few years by television or some new invention a book in a central store may be shown instantly page by page in a library thousands of miles away. s * O much for books; libraries themselyes have undergone equally sturtling changes. From the libraries of six

thousand years ago to the modern national libraries-such as the United States Library of Congress with its staff of 800 and its 4,000,000 books-the more valuable though less well equipped British Museum with its millions -of books and 62 miles of shelving-the evolutionary process may be traced. In the first and second talks I had something to say of the most troublous period of all-the "Dark Ages" in Burope when the scholarship and culture of the Ancient World fell upon evil

times. Its survival during the destruction of the Roman civilisation by the barbarians is one of the most fascinating in history. It was due in large measure to the Arabs who for a brief period conquered the world from Spain to China, absorbed the ancient Greek culture and restored it to Europe together with the beginnings of our modern medicine, mathemati¢s and physical science, They did even more towards making the modern age possible by giving us paper-the manufacture of which they had learnt from the Chinese. It was paper and printing that made the intellectual revival of Europe possible. It is calculated that 1,000,000 volumes had been printed by the end of the 15th, century. a % * PASSING on from the Middle Ages with their increased demand for books and the spread of popular learning we are struck by the changes of modern times. Besides the great national libraries and those attached uniyersities and other learned institutions we have that phenomenon of modern civilisation-the Free Public Library. The movement began in England a hundred years ago-it has owed practically nothing to public demand but everything to individual initiative and enthusiasm. The public have always been reluctant and the utility of library service has had to be demonstrated. When public libraries were first

offered one member of the. House of Commons "supposed they would soon be thinking of supplying the working classes with quoits, peg tops and footballs." » 6 PS UT America soon outstripped Great Britain-it is the land of libraries. The buildings, methods and equipment are truly marvellous. Moreover they are free. And there is one function they perform that is unique-the education of an alien population in the language and civilisation of their’ adopted country. Americans too set great store by service and. practical use. They insist that a library is a machine that requires skilful handling to get the best results. In the United States a book is regarded as 2 source of information ma England as a work of literature or art, '