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The Memory of Mankind: The Story of Libraries Since the Dawn of History
This revised edition of Alfred Hessel's 1950 A history of libraries takes bibliography into the information age. The b&w-illustrated history also goes back in time some 5,000 years before the original to reflect the discovery of clay tablet libraries in the ancient Middle East. Tolzmann (U. of Cincinnati) borrows the new title from Goethe, weaving the theme of memory through the course of examining how libraries came to be what they are today and where they may be headed next. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Hardcover
First published July 1, 2001
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August 21, 2018
Review title: A History with a history
This oddity of this item is explained by its history. It was originally written by Hessel in 1925 in German (accounting for the prevalence of coverage of German libraries), updated and translated to English in 1950 by Peiss (accounting for the majority of the 20th century chronological coverage in the period between the two world wars), and finally given a seemingly cursory updating to 2001 by Tolzmann. The chapters covering the second half of the century are short and poorly edited, and the differences in writing styles and awkward transitions show that little editing was done on the previous two writers' content to bring them to create a unified whole.
The most interesting and useful part of the history are the "dawn of history" covering the emergence of the idea and reality of the need to store and share written knowledge in the earliest epochs of human civilization. The transition of
Material from clay to papyrus to parchment to paper,
Book production from private manuscripts to monastic scribes to the printing press,
Storage from cabinets to chained books to closed stacks to open bookshelves,
Ownership from wealthy private collectors to centers of learning to national repositories to public libraries,
all played a part in the institutions, buildings, and collections we call "libraries". There are some illustrations accompanying the text that show some aspects of these transitions, but oddly there are no references to the illustrations in the text even though each illustration is numbered.
Perhaps I should attribute my low two-star rating to my heightened expectations of the book based on my love of books and libraries and the failure of the book to meet those expectations. But I would recommend this only to those with a professional interest in libraries and a willingness to temper their expectations.
This oddity of this item is explained by its history. It was originally written by Hessel in 1925 in German (accounting for the prevalence of coverage of German libraries), updated and translated to English in 1950 by Peiss (accounting for the majority of the 20th century chronological coverage in the period between the two world wars), and finally given a seemingly cursory updating to 2001 by Tolzmann. The chapters covering the second half of the century are short and poorly edited, and the differences in writing styles and awkward transitions show that little editing was done on the previous two writers' content to bring them to create a unified whole.
The most interesting and useful part of the history are the "dawn of history" covering the emergence of the idea and reality of the need to store and share written knowledge in the earliest epochs of human civilization. The transition of
Material from clay to papyrus to parchment to paper,
Book production from private manuscripts to monastic scribes to the printing press,
Storage from cabinets to chained books to closed stacks to open bookshelves,
Ownership from wealthy private collectors to centers of learning to national repositories to public libraries,
all played a part in the institutions, buildings, and collections we call "libraries". There are some illustrations accompanying the text that show some aspects of these transitions, but oddly there are no references to the illustrations in the text even though each illustration is numbered.
Perhaps I should attribute my low two-star rating to my heightened expectations of the book based on my love of books and libraries and the failure of the book to meet those expectations. But I would recommend this only to those with a professional interest in libraries and a willingness to temper their expectations.
Displaying 1 of 1 review