Mary E. Brown, Ph.D., Professor
Information Science

Southern Connecticut State University
501 Crescent Street, New Haven, CT 06515

Department of Information and Library Science
Fax: 1.203.392-5780 / Phone: 1.203.392-5781
Toll Free: 1-888-500-SCSU, then press 4

Written communication marks the beginning of recorded history and of civilization. With writing, human communication overcame time. With the book, human communication overcame space. Now, thoughts could be transported from one location to another and passed from one era to the next. Written communication also freed the human mind from having to remember in order to have knowledge; that is, the individual is now able to store information outside of them.

Written communication appears, in the form of pictorial signs, in Mesopotamia between about 4000 and 3000 BCE. The Sumerians using cuneiform script, the earliest dated writing found, accomplished transcription of actual speech. Similar forms of writing appear a short time later in the Egyptian hieroglyphics and the Chinese characters. A purely phonetic alphabet is found in Syria from at least the sixteenth or fifteenth century BCE and evidence suggesting an alphabetical script was found in Canaan dating a century or two earlier.

As writing becomes more phonetic it is able to convey more abstract ideas. As the materials used for written words becomes more lightweight and flexible, it can be transported to more places and in greater volume. Written languages composed of fewer characters opened reading and writing to a greater population (Latin originally had twenty-one characters while Chinese had 5,000-6,000 regularly used characters).

Education was a driving force behind the spread of books and the invention of printing. With the Middle Ages (1100-1500 CE), education and formal instruction moved beyond the clergy and the privileged to the layperson. By 1200 education was dependent upon books and by 1400 the majority of those who could read and write were noblemen, stewards, ladies in the landed classes, merchants, and storekeepers.

In the Anglo-Saxon period (525-1100 CE) books were produced in a monastery, treated with the reverence of sacred objects, and a rarity. By 1300 monasteries had increased in number and books were no longer so precious.

In the Anglo-Saxon period (also called the early middle ages) before approximately 1000, the author and scribe were often the same person. By 1200 there began to be a difference between them. Production was now a business. Using paper rather than parchment reduced the cost of producing books; and one could now expect to find a bookshop in any university town.

Handwritten books were copied with care, trying to insure an authentic text had been obtained for the copyist. Each transcriber had a distinct hand and many indulged in variations in their formation of letters as well as in their methods of abbreviating or shortening words. Despite care and strict rules, errors did occur and they had a cumulative effect. Once the demand for copyists exceeded the resources of the monasteries, lay scriveners where used and the deterioration of texts as well as the handwriting itself increased.

With the rising literacy of the 1400s there were more readers and a greater demand for books to read. This prompted the invention of the printing press. Printing spread so quickly that by the 1490s major states had at least one important publishing center. Generally a print run of a text numbered 200 copies with large runs seldom-exceeding 1,000 copies. Just as with author and scribe, the printer and publisher were often the same person. By the end of the 1700s publishing, printing, and bookselling were separate businesses.

Authors were not paid royalties on the sale of their books nor did they hold exclusive rights to their works. An author might lend a copy of their book or unfinished manuscript only to find later copies of it had been made and distributed. Authors wrote to express their ideas, not for money. For a brief history of copyright see the Website of the Association of Research Libraries, Washington, DC: http://www.arl.org/info/frn/copy/timeline.html

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, three characteristics identify the book: 1) it is designed to serve as an instrument of communication; 2) it uses writing or some other system of visual symbols to convey meaning; and 3) it is published for tangible circulation. Britannica goes on to define a book as ³a written (or printed) message of considerable length, meant for public circulation and recorded on materials that are light yet durable enough to afford comparatively easy portability. Its primary purpose is to announce, expound, preserve, and transmit knowledge and information between people, depending on the twin faculties of portability and permanence. Books have attended the preservation and dissemination of knowledge in every literate society.² (book, par 2).

For other resources see the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading & Publishing¹s SHARP Web at http://www.sharpweb.org/

References

book. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved March 14, 2005, from Encyclopaedia Britannica Online. http://0-search.eb.com.csulib.ctstateu.edu:80/eb/article?tocId=9080651

Hall, D. (1996). Cultures of print: Essays in the history of the book (pp. 15-35). Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.

Hay, D. (1967). Fiat lux. In J. Carter & P. H. Muir (Compls. and Eds.), Printing and the mind of man: A descriptive catalogue illustrating the impact of print on the evolution of western civilization during five centuries (pp. xv-xxxiv). New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Winckler, P. A. (Ed.). (1978). Reader in the history of books and printing (pp. 3-25). Englewood, CO: Information Handling Services.