Special Collections

Class this week was a little different than normal. Instead of having the regular lecture, we attended a presentation in the Special Collections section of the library. This is probably my favorite section of the library. As much as I love the smell of books, I love the smell of old books even more. I find old books amazing. They had to survive hundreds of years of use to make it to today and they hold some of the most amazing information. Needless to say, I really enjoyed the presentation in Special Collections.

Before even getting to the books, the presenter talked about the history of recording materials and documentation. The first materials used for writing on were minerals. We saw a clay tablet that had cuneiform writing on it, or wedge-shaped writing. The small tablet was the records of a merchant from thousands of years ago. After looking at the tablet, we we shown some metal plates that had the citizenship records of a Greek soldier on them. Eventually, two new types writing material came about, depending on geography. Papyrus was invented in Egypt and is made out of a type of reed that grows in the Nile, because of the brittleness of papyrus, it could not be folded several times, so was instead rolled into scrolls. In other areas of the world, people used animal skins to write on. The animal skins were durable enough that they could be stitched together. Monks would stitch several pages of animal skin together and then bind them with wooden boards to make books.

At this point in the presentation, we had an opportunity to see several of the old books that were hand written and bound by monks hundreds and hundreds of years ago. The presenter showed us pages that had ornate lettering and other ornamentation on the page. He also showed us pages that had unusual holes in them that were caused by the person who turned the animal skins into parchment. Some of the pages had been stitched together after being ripped. The material was so a valuable that the pages were used despite their flaws. Something I found pretty amazing was that the stitch holding together the ripped page had served as a mend in that page for hundreds of years.

After seeing these really old books, the presenter talked a bit about how the printing press was made and how the printing press changed how books were used by the world. Books were no longer a commodity of the rich and the monasteries, it became possible for all people to have books. We were then shown a few old books that had been printed using printing presses. Some of them were really valuable because they were old, but others I considered valuable because of their story. We got to see some of the books that were made in the earliest printings of the Book of Mormon and of the Doctrine and Covenants. I just found it so amazing how the time period of the Restoration made it possible for thousands of people to receive published copies of these important books, instead of having to wait years and spend lots of money for handmade copies.