A short history of the library
From clay tablets in ancient Mesopotamia to the public reading room down the street: how libraries grew, and why the idea has lasted for thousands of years.
Libraries are almost as old as writing itself. Some of the earliest known collections were clay tablets kept in the temples and palaces of ancient Mesopotamia. One of the most famous belonged to the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal at Nineveh in the 7th century BC, where thousands of tablets were gathered and catalogued.
In the 3rd century BC the Library of Alexandria in Egypt set out to collect the written knowledge of the known world. It became a symbol of learning for centuries, and its eventual loss is still remembered as one of history’s great cultural losses.
In South Asia, great centres of learning such as Nalanda kept large collections of manuscripts, drawing students and scholars from across Asia. In medieval Europe, monasteries preserved knowledge by copying books by hand, one page at a time.
The printing press, developed in Europe in the 15th century, changed everything. Books became cheaper and far more common, and collections could grow much faster. Over the following centuries, libraries moved from private collections for the few towards institutions open to many.
The 19th century brought the free public library: a place anyone could walk into to read and learn. In Kathmandu, the Kaiser Library, built from the personal collection of Field Marshal Kaiser Shumsher Rana and later opened to the public, is one of the city’s best-known historic libraries.
Today libraries lend e-books and offer internet access alongside printed books. The format has changed many times, but the idea has not: a shared, quiet place where anyone can come to learn.
