THE BEGINNINGS OF LIBRARIES

A Collection of Quipus
American Museum of Natural History, N. Y.
Nos. B 3453, 8704

A considerable mass of memorandaon the early history of libraries has beengathered by the author of this essay duringthe last twenty-five years, and out ofthis material various essays have beenpublished from time to time on AntediluvianLibraries, Medieval Libraries, SomeOld Egyptian Librarians, etc. The factthat the unworked mass of modern informationthrough excavations is so greatas to put off for a long time still a systematictreatise, has led to the plan of publishingthese essays and addresses fromtime to time as completed and in uniformstyle. Although written for very differentaudiences and in various methods, eachis an attempt to gather information notgenerally accessible and to be, so far as itgoes, either a contribution to knowledgeor to the method of knowledge, a sort ofpreliminary report or investigation in thefield, pending full and systematic report.The nucleus of this essay on the Beginningsof Libraries was an address to theLibrary School of the New York PublicLibrary at the beginning of the academicyear 1912-13, and takes its color from thisfact, but it has been freely enlarged.The writer owes special thanks to theAmerican Museum of Natural History inNew York.