BEFORE The MACHINES COME

Abstract

Before the spread of printing the chief concern of the librarian was to conserve the manuscripts in his charge. Their value, and the difficulty of replacing them, made their safety paramount. Scholars would willingly travel great distances to the collections and endure inconvenience in order to use the documents they needed. Libraries with collections of manuscripts evolved efficient systems to ensure conservation of their treasures, and their management was relatively simple. The coming of printing and the consequent mass production of documents has forced most librarians to reconsider the relationship of readers and documents. In most cases their readers' time is now much more valuable than the costs of making good losses from, and damage to, the documents in their charge. This applies even to the esoteric writings of those secret societies of the modern world—companies and government departments. The security measures used to guard the documents must not waste the time of the initiates whom they are intended to help, or prevent the documents from being fully available to them. Indeed, the librarian's chief concern now is to make his documents fully available to the readers whom they will help.

Citation

SIMPSON, D.J. (1968), "BEFORE The MACHINES COME", Aslib Proceedings, Vol. 20 No. 1, pp. 21-33. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb050140