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The history of libraries began with the first efforts to organize collections of documents. Topics of interest include accessibility of the collection, acquisition of materials, arrangement and finding tools, the book trade, the influence of the physical properties of the different writing materials, language distribution, role in education, rates of literacy, budgets, staffing, libraries for specially targeted audiences, architectural merit, patterns of usage, and the role of libraries in a nation's cultural heritage, and the role of government, church or private sponsorship. Since the 1960s issues of computerization and digitization come to the fore. Library history is the academic discipline devoted to the study of the history of libraries; it is a subfield of library science and historiography. ==Early libraries== The first libraries consisted of archives of the earliest form of writing—the clay tablets in cuneiform script discovered in temple rooms in Sumer, some dating back to 2600 BC. These archives, which mainly consisted of the records of commercial transactions or inventories, mark the end of prehistory and the start of history.〔Renfrew, Colin. ''Prehistory The Making Of The Human Mind'', New York: Modern Library, 2008.〕 Things were much the same in the government and temple records on papyrus of Ancient Egypt.〔 The earliest discovered private archives were kept at Ugarit; besides correspondence and inventories, texts of myths may have been standardized practice-texts for teaching new scribes. There is also evidence of libraries at Nippur about 1900 BC and those at Nineveh about 700 BC showing a library classification system.〔''The American International Encyclopedia'', New York: J. J. Little & Ives, 1954; Volume IX〕 Over 30,000 clay tablets from the Library of Ashurbanipal have been discovered at Nineveh, providing modern scholars with an amazing wealth of Mesopotamian literary, religious and administrative work. Among the findings were the Enuma Elish, also known as ''the Epic of Creation,''〔"Epic of Creation", in Dalley, Stephanie. ''Myths from Mesopotamia.'' Oxford, 1989; pp. 233-81〕 which depicts a traditional Babylonian view of creation, the Epic of Gilgamesh,〔"Epic of Gilgamesh", in Dalley, Stephanie. ''Myths from Mesopotamia.'' Oxford, 1989; pp. 50–135〕 a large selection of "omen texts" including ''Enuma Anu Enlil'' which "contained omens dealing with the moon, its visibility, eclipses, and conjunction with planets and fixed stars, the sun, its corona, spots, and eclipses, the weather, namely lightning, thunder, and clouds, and the planets and their visibility, appearance, and stations",〔Van De Mieroop, Marc. ''A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000–323 BC''. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing, 2007: pg. 263 〕 and astronomic/astrological texts, as well as standard lists used by scribes and scholars such as word lists, bilingual vocabularies, lists of signs and synonyms, and lists of medical diagnoses. Philosopher Laozi was keeper of books in the earliest library in China, which belonged to the Imperial Zhou dynasty.〔Mukherjee, A. K. Librarianship: Its Philosophy and History. Asia Publishing House (1966) p. 86〕 Also, evidence of catalogues found in some destroyed ancient libraries illustrates the presence of librarians.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「History of libraries」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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