Evolution of BooksMAUDE RABIU GWADABE

mrgwadabe.mac@buk.edu.ngR00M B1-182, FIRST FLOOR, DEPARTMENT OF MASS

COMMUNICATION, BAYERO UNIVERSITY KANO

MAC 2212: INTRODUCTION TO BOOK PUBLISHING

129,864,880..

• Google 2010 estimate• Most Stakeholders believe it is too conservative• Five years later• How many have you read?

Without Books

• History is silent• Literature is dumb• Science is crippled• Thought and Speculation at a standstill (Tuchman, 1980)

History of Books

• Writing• Paper• Binding• Printing

Writing

• Cave paintings were the first attempt to record information in “written” form.

• Writing emerged in the earliest civilizations as a means of account keeping.

• Later it features in religious rituals and ceremonies.• It is carried out by a special group of learned people.

Clay tokens

Earliest forms of writing were clay tokens for recording inventory used between 8000 BCE to 4000 BCE in the Mediterranean region.

PictographsThese Clay tablets from 3200BCE show early form of Sumer pictographic writing.

CuneiformWedge-shaped writing on baked clay tablets emerged ca. 3000BCE in Mesopotamia.

Chinese Script

Earliest Chinese writing on tortoise shell or ox bone emerged ca 1600-1000BCE

HieroglyphsEgyptian Hieroglyphs

containing both semantic and phonetic information emerged ca. 3500-400 BCE.

This page is from the oldest extant “book” in the world – The Book of the Dead.

Phoenician ScriptPhoenicians

created a system of

writing with 22 consonants ca. 1200 BCE

Archaic Greek

Ancient Greeks adapted the Phoenician script ca. 750-500BCE.

Nabataen Script

The precursor of the Arabic Script was

created in Jordan ca 200 – 400 BCE when modern Arabic Script

emerged.

Modern European Alphabets

In 789CE, Emperor Charlemagne of France and most of Western Europe ordered that the Bible should be recopied in a cursive script called Caroline miniscule.The script was adopted throughout Western Europe and became the basis of the modern lowercase alphabet.

Paper

• Clay tablets, walls, rock surfaces, bones and shells were used for writing.• There was a need for more lightweight,

inexpensive and user-friendly material.

PapyrusAncient Egyptians processed papyrus plants to create a smooth and durable writing surface.

AlexandriaThe Egyptians developed a great library in Alexandria housing about 500,000 scrolls of papyrus.

PergamonThe Ancient Greek began competition with the Library of Alexandria. The Egyptians banned the exportation of papyrus to the city.As a center of tanning, Pergamon substituted papyrus with processed calf skin called vellum.

ParchmentVellum was called Charta pergamene, meaning “paper of Pergamon.”This evolved into the word parchment.For convenience, the parchment was cut into rectangles instead of the irregular shape of the animal skin.

Paper from China The Chinese invented paper ca. 105CE.They made paper from hemp fibers, mulberry tree barks, old fishnets, rags, etc.The Chinese kept the secret of paper making for almost 600 years.

Globalizing Paper Arab merchants learned the secret of paper and established paper mills in Arabia.When the Islamic Empire annexed Spain, the first paper mill was established in Europe.From there, the knowledge of paper making spread across the globe.

Binding

• Clay tokens were strung together or placed in envelopes called bullae.

• Papyrus used to be rolled like mats into scrolls.• Parchment used to be folded and bound together to make

a codex.• Codex is the beginning of the book as we know it today.• It led to the emergence of page numbers, footnotes,

running heads, table of contents and indices.

Printing

• The Chinese invented the first printing ink ca. 400CE using soot from lamps mixed with linseed oil.

• Printing was used to reproduce pictures, playing cards, designs on cloth, etc.

• Pictures or designs were cut into wood, stone, or metal blocks covered with ink and pressed onto parchment, or cloth.

• This method is known as Block Printing.

Movable TypeInvented 1040 by Pi Sheng.

In a movable type press, individual characters were made of clay and glued together to form the printing plate.Wang Zheng made wooden characters by 1275.However, this did not lead to mass production of books as Chinese writing has thousands of characters each representing a word.

Gutenberg’s PressInvented 1452 by Johannes Gutenberg

The characters were made of metal. After assembling in a frame, they were inked and pressed on paper.This led to the mass production of books for the first time in human history.

Linotype PressInvented in 1884 by Otto

MergenthalerA single operator creates the lines which could be cast from molten metal inside the machine.It increased productivity and allowed changing font size, leadings and margins.

Offset LithographyInvented 1903 by Ira Washington Rubel

This involves printing from an original plate to a second plate which is then used to print on to the paper.It makes the printing much clearer.

Desktop Publishing1985

The personal computer makes it possible for anybody to run all prepress activities on their desktops.These activities include typesetting, editing, page design and plate making.The presses themselves are now operated by computer.

The Internet1990s

The internet makes it possible to produce digital books that do not have to be printed.Apart from online reading, portable digital readers and mobile devices are also available.There are still accessibility, affordability, reliability, and convenience issues to be decided.Whatever the outcome will be, it is YOU that will decide.

Mass Production of Books

• The invention of Gutenberg’s press changed everything about how books were made, distributed, and read.• Before Gutenberg, books were valuable, rare and

unique.• After Gutenberg, books became standardized,

plentiful and relatively cheap to produce and disseminate.

Mass CultureThe availability of books means for the first time, many people could read the same books and get exposed to the same ideas at the same time.This makes books the first medium of Mass Communication.

Renaissance The new availability of classical texts from ancient Greece and Rome fuelled the renaissance.The Renaissance was a period of individualism and a turn to humanism.

ReformationIn 1517 Martin Luther instigated the Protestant Reformation by insisting that people had the right to read the Bible in their own language.

CensorshipThe Catholic Church decreed that all books most be screened before being published.Pope Innocent VIII banned all translations of the bible.The church also issued a periodic list of banned books.

Your Turn

• What do books mean to you?• What are your favorite books?• Which books do you think have had impact on your own

life?