Daily Dose 1896

Candida Höfer

Monographic Images 1896 | Candida Höfer, Libraries "When I was thinking about what could be said about libraries, I first tried to determine the certain or uncertain functions of a library. For this purpose, I briefly inspected the libraries to which I had access, as they are also open at night—namely, the library of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh, the library of Polycrates on Samos, the library of Peisistratus in Athens, the Library of Alexandria (which already contained 400,000 volumes in the third century BC and then, together with the Serapeion library, held 700,000 volumes in the first century), and finally, the library of Pergamon and that of Augustus (by the time of Emperor Constantine, there were 28 libraries in Rome). Furthermore, I have some familiarity with certain Benedictine monastery libraries, and so I began to wonder what the actual purpose of a library is. In the beginning, in the times of Ashurbanipal or Polycrates, it was probably just about simply storing scrolls or volumes so that they wouldn’t be scattered around. Later, I think, collecting and safeguarding were added, as the scrolls were, after all, valuable. Still later, in the time of the Benedictines, copying also became a function—the library as a kind of transit zone: the book arrives, is copied, and then either the original or the copy leaves. At certain times, perhaps already between Augustus and Constantine, the purpose of a library was surely also to make its books available for reading—more or less what the noble UNESCO resolution states, which declares that one of the purposes of libraries is to enable the public to read." >From Umberto Eco's Essay De Bibliotheca , 1981. (translated from German)