Library of Alexandria: Image via Wikipedia

We have moved on from the days when culture and knowledge was passed through the generations by word of mouth. No longer is there a need to memorise long pieces of poetry or prose or know the habits of nature in detail. Perhaps we as humans have lost something but there is no going back. We moved on to stele, scrolls, books and now technology.

A library is a hospital for the mind.

Anonymous

Soon there will be a generation, in the West anyway, that does not know books or traditional libraries. Libraries will be something historical – like the famous Library of Alexandria, in Egypt, destroyed all those years ago. As it is they are not now places of peaceful wanderings and searches. Searches of necessity or searches for that one piece of information or that one book, which once read, stays with one forever.

Some books are to be tasted, others are to be swallowed and some few to be chewed and digested.

Francis Bacon

A book is like a garden carried in the pocket.

Arab Proverb

Words work best on the mind when seen. I prefer mine on a printed page. For as an old Chinese proverb says, “Words are but air, the pen leaves a mark”.

Inscription c. AD 79 mentioning the Library at Alexandria: Image via Wikipedia