Hi guys! I was thinking about the books in the rare book room. I noticed something interesting concerning the impact of the invention of movable type. Before its invention books were produced in fairly small numbers and were fairly expensive, but afterward they became more widely available and more affordable. In the centuries following the invention there was what could be considered a fairly dramatic leap in progress, at least in some areas. I was thinking maybe that production of more books had something to do with it.
The invention of movable type (and the introduction of the printing press in Europe) occurred in about 1450. That's only about 560 years ago. The progress that has been made since then is pretty astounding. Of course, there were fairly remarkable new discoveries and systems invented before that time, but it didn't tend to stick around as well (think the Roman Republic and the civil engineering of ancient Rome in general). Maybe it was books that made this progress more permanent and readily attained.
What are your ideas on this?
Melissa C.
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I definitely think that the invention of movable type and the printing press contributed to the success of mankind. Although, like you said, there were many discoveries, inventions, and developments in technology, all of the advancements would not have been recorded as well without the printing press. Hayakawa said that one of the most important functions of language is to pass on knowledge from one person to the next so that we can amass an incredibly vast pool of knowledge. By inventing movable type, Gutenburg made it so much easier to record data and get it out to the general public.
ReplyDelete-Alexa
The ability to mass produce books definitely resulted in huge amounts of social, economic, and political progress. Without it, education wouldn't have been able to become widespread and ideas would have no medium in which to travel throughout the world.
ReplyDeleteWhenever I think of the printing press, I can't help but compare it to the internet. Both were huge advancements in communication, and both led to vast changes in the world because of this. While it's still hard to compare breakthroughs when they occur 540 years apart, they are certainly very similar in nature. What do you guys think of this? And which do you think was more influential?
-Bryce Cody
It's hard to debate that, but interesting question. I think the printing press and movable type were needed for the internet to be as revolutionary as it has become. It just makes sense that the spread of books came first.
ReplyDeleteI think it's interesting how one of the biggest questions in the "information age" of today is which medium is more accurate -- books or the internet. One of our passages on the PSAT, if I remember correctly, was about Wikipedia. One passage said Wikipedia was as accurate as Brittanica and libraries are prone to mistakes. The other passage said Wikipedia can't be trusted because anybody has access and can mess it up and libraries are so much better. I have to agree with the first passage because both books and internet can make errors equally. Books are just seemingly trusted more because they've been published in print and they're viewed as permanent, whereas the internet is seen as a fluid dynamic thing. But the fluidity may lend to more viewpoints on a given topic rather than one author's view in a book.
I guess that's why there exists such a thing as a rare book room, because books are unchanging, and they are preserved as what they were when they were written/published. There won't be a rare internet room because the internet is erased and manipulated without a trace of what it was.
-- tori
I definitely agree with how there can be only rare book room, not rare internet room. Books are definitely considered more valuable than information posted online because they are unchangeable. I think their permanentness makes them more valuable and special. I was amazed by the books we got to see today and was surprised to find that the value of rare books is not determined by how old they are, but by their scarcity. I always thought that books were rare and valuable because of their antiquity.
ReplyDelete-Joanne
It truly is amazing to realize how far we've progressed due to the invention of the printing press. The easier it is to access people from around the world, the more encouraged people become to voice their opinons on matters, invent new things for people's convenience, etc.
ReplyDeleteWhat fascinated me most was the fact that the large, rare books in the cases were all hand-written. We complain about writing essays in classes each day, yet the authors of all those rare, old books had to do everything by hand. I can't even fathom how long it took each author to write one book. We really do take a lot of things for granted nowadays.
-Chloe Martianou
I was reading a book the other day and they said something that really applies to this. One of the characters was talking about how science builds off itself, and so it progresses exponentially. I think this applies to anything, not just science. Like Hayakawa says, language allows us to move forward and build off the accomplishments of others, instrad of having to constantly rediscover things. The invention of the printing press allowed us to share information more readily, meaning we could spread our ideas and build off of them more easily. This caused us to progress more rapidly. Its the same for the internet; its invention increased the spread of information even more, making progress even faster.
ReplyDelete-Elizabeth