In Greece and Rome the earliest books were written on tablets of wood orpieces of bark covered with wax, and writing was possible upon themwith a small stick called “stylus". In Assyria and Babylonia claytablets were used for writing and the words were drawn with a piece ofwood. After baking, the tablets were kept on shelves. They werelong-lasting and some of them survived until the present day.The earliest books of the ancient world were written on papyrus andskins of young animals. These books took the form of a long strip,roiled from one cylinder to another. Though paper has been known inChina since the first century, the secret of papermaking came to Europemuch later.Books were popular in ancient Rome: there were many booksellers and thefirst public library was founded there about 39 B.C.1 Only the richcould buy books or make their slaves copy books from importantlibraries.
By the time, of the Middle Ages all books were handwritten,beautifully decorated, but they were often chained to the shelves. Butonly few people could read them.First printing was invented in China and by the end of the 15thcentury there were more than 200 presses in Europe . The early printerswere not only craftsmen but also editors, publishers and booksellers.The first printing, press in England was set up by William Caxton atWestminster in 1476. and the first printing press in Russia — by IvanFedorov in Moscow in 1564. Early libraries were used only by scientists but laterythey were used by the public. In the 19th century a proper system ofpublic libraries appeared. Now most countries have their own nationallibraries.
Many old university libraries have rich collections of books: Oxfordand Cambridge in England, Harvard and Yale in the United States.
Among the great libraries of the world we can name the BritishMuseum Library (the British Library) in London, the Library ofCongress in the United States, it’s the world’s largest Library,Bibliotheque Nationale in France , the Beijing Library in China, theState Public Library in Moscow.
Modern libraries do their best to help people getinformation as quickly as possible. They use computers and electroniccatalogues.Probably the most difficult problem for any library is tokeep their books, journals and films.
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