“A university is just a group of buildings gathered around a library.” -- Shelby Foote
In honor of National Library Week, April 10 – 16, 2005, the MCC Libraries will be printing fascinating facts about libraries all week in the Tribune. Please join us every day in celebrating the important role libraries play in all of our lives.
Libraries have existed as long as humans have produced written works. From collections of clay tablets in Mesopotamia to papyrus scrolls in Egypt, archaeologists have unearthed ample evidence of our desire to amass collections of knowledge.
While there were numerous libraries in the ancient world, the most famous library of the ancients was, of course, the Great Library of Alexandria, founded in approximately 300 BC. It has been claimed that the Alexandrian Library contained almost 750,000 scrolls at one point, before the destruction of the library by fire and other assaults. The library was part of an academy that fueled research and learning still famous for its accomplishments.
The Vatican Library was founded in the 4th century and now contains one of the most historically significant collections in the world, from books and scrolls to Greek and Latin artifacts.
The monasteries of the Middle Ages were the primary centers of intellectual activity at the time in the western world. Without the diligence of those long-ago monks, many more books would have been lost from our record.
In the 1400s, Gutenberg’s movable-type printing invention revolutionized the world of book making and the future of libraries. Suddenly, books were not solely for scholars and the rich; they were readily available to the masses.
Now, the largest library in the world resides in the United States, the Library of Congress, containing nearly 128 million items. Within just the 64 SUNY campus libraries, we have access to over 3 million holdings, searchable from our own MCC Libraries’ online catalog and available to our students. Access to the world’s written works, in their many different forms, is greater today than ever in history.
This week join us in recognizing all of the libraries that serve the public good by functioning as central hubs for knowledge and intellectual inquiry for everyone.
Lori Annesi
Library
04/11/2005 |