[HN Gopher] Early Bookcases, Cupboards and Carousels
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       Early Bookcases, Cupboards and Carousels
        
       Author : diodorus
       Score  : 49 points
       Date   : 2024-07-30 19:34 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (blog.lostartpress.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (blog.lostartpress.com)
        
       | 082349872349872 wrote:
       | How were scrolls stored? (I'm wondering if there's any backward
       | compatibility going on with the cupboards...)
        
         | Jun8 wrote:
         | Information below is about the system used in Library of
         | Alexandria but other libraries of that time, e.g. the one in
         | Pergamum, was probably organized similarly: Each roll had a tab
         | on the end (the circular end of the scroll) that gave the
         | author's name and some other information, but often no title.
         | Problem was that many rolls contained more than one work and
         | many works took many rolls. Famous librarians have invented
         | techniques to make the job of finding a work easier, since
         | there were 490,000 rolls in the main library! The main library
         | was reserved for the scholars of the Museum, while its sister
         | library, with about 43k books, was open for public use.
         | 
         | Zenodotus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenodotus) the
         | Library's first director, invented alphabetical order as a mode
         | of organization. Rolls were also arranged in different rooms,
         | by topic, e.g. poetry, history. Another important device was
         | bibliographic work, such as the _Pinakes_ (Tables) of
         | Callimachus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinakes), which
         | filled no less than 120 books (it has not survived but was
         | widely quoted).
         | 
         | If you want to delve deeper, _Libraries in the Ancient World_
         | by Lionel Casson, from which I took the informatio above, is a
         | very informative and readable book. It even has the only known
         | depiction of how the rolls were arranged on shelves.*
        
         | dredmorbius wrote:
         | _Scrolls were stacked horizontally on a shelf or stored upright
         | in a cylindrical book-box (capsa), which was fitted with a lid
         | and straps for carrying (the scrinium was a larger container).
         | According to Pliny, the only wood suitable for such capsae was
         | beech, which could be thinly-cut (XVI.lxxxiii.229). If
         | particularly valuable, rolls might be wrapped in a protective
         | sleeve and tied with thongs...._
         | 
         | <https://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/sc..
         | .>
        
       | Jun8 wrote:
       | Desktop book carousels look great but Capitano Agostino Ramelli's
       | book wheel is a tour de force! These are still useful for heavy
       | book such as unabridged dictionaries, the use of which has
       | declined massively but are a joy to consult, with additional
       | information you cannot find online (unless you subscribe to OED).
       | I've always wanted one of these.
        
       | perihelions wrote:
       | I've heard of "bull in a china shop", but "ox in a library" is
       | even worse! And a *flying* ox with wings at that!--so it can
       | reach the top shelves, too, I guess.
       | 
       | Wikipedia tells me a winged ox is old religious iconography
       | associated with Saint Luke [0], which explains why they've
       | inserted it into multiple paintings in otherwise-nonsensical
       | contexts. (Wikipedia also has one additional painting of this ox
       | ("Hermen Rode (1484)")--this one is actually standing on a
       | bookshelf, why not).
       | 
       | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luke_the_Evangelist#Symbol
        
       | throwup238 wrote:
       | _> Some books were small enough to fit in one hand, while others
       | were so large and heavy it took two people to lift one._
       | 
       | That sounded farfetched to me so I looked up the Codex Amiatinus
       | mentioned in TFA and wow, it really is that big:
       | https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Codex_Am...
        
       | dredmorbius wrote:
       | Looking somewhat later, I find it interesting that "bookcase" and
       | "bookshelf" become prevalent in Google's Ngram Viewer only
       | comparatively late in the 20th century. "Bookcase" starts its
       | ascent around 1900 and peaks in the 1930s, "bookshelf" really
       | doesn't become particularly prevalent until after 1980.
       | 
       | <https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=bookcase%2C%20...>
       | 
       | This corresponds roughly with cheap mass-market books becoming
       | widespread, particularly paperbacks (mid-1930s, large growth in
       | the 1950s).
        
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       (page generated 2024-08-02 23:00 UTC)