The BYU Special Collections

This last Wednesday, our Doctrine and Covenants class went to the BYU library's special collection for a presentation on the collection. And it was pretty sweet. Old books have fascinated me since... well, ever I guess, but especially since I spent a few hours in an antique book store in Serbia while I was living there. There I saw a 200 year old pop up book about Christopher Columbus, among other things. But I digress. The special collection at BYU is almost unique among such collections in that they actually allow undergraduates to look at the books in the collection, albeit with supervision. But these books are incredibly valuable, so the fact they even let us breathe in their general direction is impressive.

Really, the presentation was a brief history of book and paper making. I got to handle papyrus, which was new to me. I was surprised that they would make rolls of papyrus. Even the new stuff seemed too stiff to be able to roll without damaging it, but I didn't really try too hard, so who knows.

My favorite part was the illumination of texts they showed us. I had read some about the making of it in a fantasy series called Inkheart, and so was really excited to see some very high quality work. It was just as beautiful as he described. The painting was just so incredibly detailed. There were lines so fine, they must have been painted by a single hair, and they seem too thin even for that. It reminded me of how I fold cranes so small, I can't even really fit my fingers where they need to go, I just have to bend the paper JUST right so that it will do it for me. The color were also a lot more vibrant than we often want to give credit to ancients. They weren't dumb. They just didn't quite have the technology yet. Astounding.

I also go to hold type that is based on that which Gutenberg used with his revolutionary press. It was a good exercise for me in order to see how it could have been made, produced, and used. It makes more sense, though I still don't know quite how they made the molds. But That looks like something doable, given a certain amount of know how. Made me think of what would happen if technology had to start over. Because, given just the sum total of the world's knowledge, but no tools, how do you start over? Who makes the tools to make the tools? It would take a long time unless we had the right people all ready.

The lengths the ancients would go to to record their texts shows what great importance they placed on the written word. Amazing. It was a fascinating presentation.