NO, BUT I SAW THE MOVIE

foreign [Music] Once Upon a Time this man was voted by his cavemates the most likely to stay alive because he had such native talents as sharp teeth big muscles and caliban carried a big stick all but that long ago today elevan the caveman would be a hopeless cowardly Misfit at any intersection confronted with machines we take for granted confronted with the simplest of problems question why is caliban the caveman such a frightened Misfit in the middle of the 20th century and what is this to do with you well our Story begins approximately twenty thousand years ago in caves in Western Europe where we find man exercising one talent that distinguishes him from all animals on this planet the ability to draw pictures and through picture to communicate with other human beings distant in time and space thousands of years went into the refinement of this exclusively human Talent until it flowered into the first crude alphabets ideographic writing where the symbol or picture stands for the idea this might represent a house but how do you represent the idea of home it has been written that way but I don't think for most of us it quite carries the meaning we like to associate with home by 2000 BC man had perfected cuneiform or wedge-shaped writing on clay tablets but it had a different kind of drawback [Music] for over 4 000 years man wrote on Papyrus Rolls made from the Papyrus Reed that grew in the Nile River in those days there were no paragraphs no space between words not even punctuation papyrus-like clay had its disadvantages for example it would have taken 60 average size Papyrus roles to hold all Shakespeare's plays and sonnets or one continuous roll 1800 feet long capable of reaching from the top of the Empire State Building all the way down to the street Papyrus was followed by parchment or prepared animal hides the height of the young animal was called Vellum today the words parchment and Vellum are used interchangeably but where did today's book come from and here you see the answer the wax coated wooden tablet on which Greeks and Romans wrote with a metal stylus man figured out these wooden tablets could be hinged together with leather thongs then the final step came with the hinging or tying together of parchment or Vellum Pages the clumsy great daddy of today's millions of books during a so-called Dark Ages from approximately 500 A.D to 1500 manuscripts were copied by thousands of monks and monasteries all over Europe and Asia miners these monks kept alive books and the love of books by their patient copying throughout the Century's long night that had descended on the western world and curiously or perhaps not so curiously it was during this Twilight time that perhaps the most beautiful books in all history were produced [Music] and this was a time when monks trudged everywhere to borrow or copy precious holy books take our friend here in Ireland name Aloysius destination library of the monastery at Monte Casino Italy purpose to copy a certain sacred book we'll check up on you later wishes after the monasteries came the universities as the collector's editors and copiers of books universities loan books to students true but there was a string attached in openstack libraries today there are no strings or chains attached in those days students and faculty were required to wear caps and gowns in the library not precisely the case today in most American universities meanwhile the Thousand Years sleep that had begun in the fifth century was coming to an end with the 15th century came the Renaissance the Renaissance or the great Rebirth of knowledge a time when men rediscovered the meaning of intellectual freedom freedom to read Pagan Latin Classics freedom to read pre-christian Greek Giants it was a time when Christian artists produced their masterpieces it was a time indeed whose motto was men can do all things if they will and a man at this precise moment in history did perfect a means of printing rapidly the man who accomplished the mechanical miracle was Johann Gutenberg an obscure German printer and in 1450 started a torrent of print that within the next 50 years presses modeled after his committed more printed words to paper than man had been able to write by hand in his entire previous history from this simple but revolutionary hand press came not only man's past locked in print but today's complicated and efficient presses pouring forth millions of words a day millions of words a day quite a contrast to brother Aloysius who will take over a million steps to copy just one book today the storehouse for this printed record is the library and on every campus the library is the Hub of intellectual activities now here's a big man on campus and he's interested in what this library has that just might interest him right young man suppose then we well if it isn't caliban the caveman now there's a real big big man on campus but I don't suppose he'd be interested in the library would you Cal you would all right then suppose we go inside no no gal use the door well thanks to Cal we're just in time for the movement [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] as you can see cavemen aren't exactly at hold in the 20th century Joe suppose you and I take a quick ramble through the library okay a library is still primarily a collection of the printed record or books but today a library also has other means of making thought or feeling available in lasting form [Music] foreign [Music] and you can save a lot of time in a library if you know what you're looking for for example here's a young lady who does notice the time she saves [Music] foreign [Music] of course there's such a thing as taking it easy too just browsing like this fellow [Music] well maybe he's taking it too easy but not all reading is done in the library Joe not by a long shot [Music] foreign [Music] ly complicated world you can't just rely on your native talents if you do like Taliban you'll be afraid bewildered unequipped for making a living incapable of understanding the world you live in it is in the library that you will find the written recorded pictured history of man's Journey Through Time and Space to the farthermost frontiers of manned artistic imagination your library centuries in the coming now yours for the youth zone say like to know what happened to Aloysius the Monk by the time Aloysius arrived at the monastery at Monte Casino Italy it was out of business the moral is don't take that long getting to your library right brother Aloysius [Music] foreign