The history of the written word goes back many centuries. More than five thousand years ago people wrote on clay tablets. The wet clay was etched with a stylus, then kiln-dried. Today, we call this type of writing cuneiform.

Papyrus, a type of paper made from plants growing along the banks of the Nile River, was used for writing as early as 4,000 BC. Papyrus scrolls were read vertically, from left to right, the way we read books today.

Around 400 BC, codex began to replace papyrus scrolls. The codex was more like today's books, with separate pages bound together in a cover.

The first method of printing words was with woodcuts, a raised printing area on a wooden block. Ink was rolled over the letters or images and pressed onto paper or cloth to imprint the image.

In 1440, Johannes Gutenberg invented an easier method of printing. He created moveable type by developing metal letters placed in an adjustable mold. He used oil-based ink and a wooden screw press with a platen (a flat plate that exerts pressure) to cast the image onto paper. His method of printing became the standard until the late 20th century.

The oldest printed book in the world is the Diamond Sutra, discovered by the abbot Wang Yuan-lu in Dunhuang, China in 868 AD.

The first book printed with Gutenberg's moveable type method was the Gutenberg Bible. Approximately two hundred copies were printed in 1455, of which about fifty are still in existence today.

Printing was largely black and white until the early 19th century when artists began hand-coloring images. Color printing didn't become photomechanical until the late 19th century. The oldest known colored book is The City of Philadelphia, As It Appeared in the Year 1800, a 28-page hand-colored copperplate engraving.

Books have been stored in libraries for centuries, as well. When John Harvard died in 1638, he bequeathed his collection of 400 books to the New College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which was eventually named for him. Today, Harvard Library is the largest university library in the United States.

In the late 1600s, Thomas Bray established the first free lending libraries in the American Colonies, in South Carolina.

In 1731, Benjamin Franklin and a group of fifty subscribers established the Library Company in Philadelphia. It was the first subscription library in the United States.

On April 24, 1800, President John Adams approved the expenditure of $5,000 to purchase books for the new Library of Congress. Initially, the library contained 740 books and three maps. By 1814, when the British invaded Washington and burned the library, it contained over 3,000 volumes. In 1815, Thomas Jefferson sold his personal collection of 6,487 books to the United States for $23,940 to reestablish the Library of Congress.

From 1881 to 1919, Andrew Carnegie established 2,509 libraries, 1,689 of which were in the United States. In 1919, there were 3,500 libraries in the US, nearly half of which Carnegie funded. He became known as the Patron Saint of Libraries.

For more information on the history of books and printing, follow these links:

The History of Printing
The Carnegie Libraries
Famous Libraries
Library History
The History of the Library


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