A Brief History of Print

Introduction

A Brief History of Print

The End of Books

Hypertext

What Is The Book?

The Novel Is Dead

This Is Not Science Fiction

Monkeys & Typewriters

In Defense of The E-Book

Conclusion

References

The end of books?

          It is impossible to say precisely when writers, scholars, and publishing industry professionals began pronouncing that the end of the book was nigh. As far back as the days when Homer’s works were transcribed onto parchment, print, as we now know it, was perceived as the sickly offspring of a robust parent, namely oral literature. Records dating from the 5th century BC document debates regarding the financial burden of wasting so many sheep for so lengthy and repetitive a text as The Iliad, or The Odyssey.

          And what of the individual’s interaction with the work? What benefit or entertainment could come from the reading of a narrative in which a spectator could have no part; where no verbal exchanges between listener and speaker could shape the telling of the tale? Despite these objections, parchment transcriptions of narratives became increasingly popular, though oral literature retained its cultural status until parchment itself was made obsolete by Gutenberg’s press.

           Though the Chinese had used similar print techniques as far back as the 11th
century, it is Johann Gutenberg’s printing press that is credited with revolutionizing the transmission of information and forever changing Western culture. With the widespread use of moveably type, the availability and relatively inexpensive cost of printed materials ensured that knowledge became readily accessible to the people and no longer the sole property of the educated elite.   As emphasis shifted from the visual to the textual, thereby altering the way written works were perceived by an emerging diverse readership, the notion of authorship increased in significance.

          With printed books numbering in the millions by the early 1500’s, it became necessary for scholars to be able to reference and identify who wrote a particular text, as well as the date and location of its production, making the facts of publication nearly as important as the text itself. In this way, print technology and the book became synonymous and, as such, came to symbolize emerging values of individualism and equality that developed out of a growing literacy.

Tara Stephens
School of Library and Information Sciences