EVOLUTION OF MODERN PUBLISHING IN NIGERIA
Impact of Printing upon
Scholarship and Libraries
While the invention of writing has enabled
man to rescue what he says and thinks from the transitoriness and uncertainty
of oral communication, based upon the fallible instrument - the human memory
thus overcoming the spatial and temporal constraints, the impact of printing
with movable type upon scholarship and research has been enormous. Marshall
McLuhan (1962) has branded the complex effects of the invention of printing
“the Gutenberg Galaxy”. He sees the relatively ready availability of the
printed matter, following the invention, as creating a new kind of human being,
who thinks differently from the way in which people had thought prior to the
invention.
Several benefits followed the invention of
modem printing. First, books became available in far larger numbers. Before the
invention, it was the laborious manual method used for producing books, which
were then very expensive, but beautiful, as there were paid copyists,
calligraphers and illuminators, who gave considerable attention to aesthetics
of books. With the mass production of books went their beauty as physical
objects; editorial quality came to be considered as more important than
physical characteristics.
Secondly, it became possible to produce
identical copies of an edition of a printed book. Numerous errors had crept
into the manually copied texts, and multiplication of books usually meant the
multiplication of errors, transferred from the books being copied. The new
printing technology permitted uniform edition, which is usually proceded by
critical and careful editorial work and proof-reading.
Thirdly, the size of the
periodical press - the newspaper and magazine - was made possible. Both communication
media are, today, unquestionable social vehicles of information, education and
entertainment. Up till the latter part of the seventeenth century, when
scholarship and research were still largely amateurish undertakings, the spread
of scientific ideas depended upon the tardy method of communication through the
printed book. As the number of scientists grew, they began to band themselves
together in academias to discuss their research and experiments. These academias soon became centers of communication
of scientific knowledge. The royal Society of London and the Academie Royale
des Sciences of Paris introduced the Philosophical Transactions
and Journal des Scavans respectively
Polymathic in nature, up to the eighteenth
century, carrying book reviews, scientific news and observations, and
translations of letters from foreign scientists, the journal, with the
increasing specialization in science itself, began to be devoted to particular
areas of science in the nineteenth century. The original purpose of journals
was not so much to publish new scientific papers as to monitor and digest the
learned publications and letters that were too much for one individual to cope
with in daily reading and correspondence. Just as, in their coverage, the early
journals were general, so were the early abstracting services polymathic.
Discipline-oriented abstracting services emerged only much later.
Fourthly, printing made possible a
well-informed public. This had not been possible because papyrus rolls, clay
tablets and parcFhment
were rare and highly treasured, and as few people were illiterate, they had no
need for libraries or books. The motivation for literacy grew with the increasing
availability of printed matter; so did the need to be able to read, thus sowing
the seeds of the subsequent demand for,public universal education.
Fifthly, printing made library open to
everyone a possibility. The libraries of clay tablets and papyrus rolls were
limited collections of relatively rare materials, which could be acquired by
the wealthy. Even in the middle Ages, book collecting was a symbol of prestige
and affluence. In the ancient period, private libraries were frequently subject
of satire by Roman writers like Seneca, Lucan and Petronius, who saw libraries
becoming as necessary in the houses of the wealthy men as baths with hot and
cold water. But the writings of Cicero, the famous Roman Lawyer and orator,
frequently mention his library and those of his friends, that time, attached to
private libraries.
The printing phenomenon broke the monopoly
of the wealthy men in book collecting. With the spread and development of
printing, the library, as a dynamic and accessible storehouse of a large
portion of world’s knowledge, began to assert itself. It thus created the
possibility of the evolution of distinctive types of libraries - academic,
public, school, national and special that we have today.
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