Visit to Special Collections

Well I did a post earlier on about money and print and I have already done our field trip post as well as the annotated bibliography so I wasn't sure exactly what I would post on this week. After an enjoyable thanksgiving up in Canada with lots of great things that occurred, it was great to come back to calls on tuesday to such a great lecture. So I feel that it is appropriate and I would be amiss if I didn't focus on the things that Royal Skousen explained to us Tuesday morning.





I think it was really easy, at least it was for me, to see that Mr...Brother...Dr..I don't really know how to preface him but I think i'll just go with Dr. because it seems appropriate. As I was saying though, it was really easy to see that Dr. Skousen was really passionate about the things he explained which was really great. Especially since i've been trying really hard to figure out what I want to do as far as a career goes and I have always been told that it's so important to love what you do. Anyways, that's not the point of this post at all.

As you can recall, Dr. Skousen explained that there are three types of books; Scrolls, Codex, and Electronic scroll. We didn't get to focus to much on the electronic scroll as it seems as though we ran short on time.

I thought it was really neat how he explained the reasons why in the Old Testament there are first and second books. Examples such as 1st and 2nd Samuel and Kings amongst others. This was due to the fact that only so much could fit on scrolls and so once it was full then they got another one.
This was definitely an advantage to Codex's because they could potentially be as big or as small as one would like. We definitely did see some pretty big books too so we know that they did head that route sometimes.

One thing that hit me as I was listening to Dr. Skousen is that there are so many peculiar or great things about codex's or books that for most of my life I have not given a second thought about. With growing up around books constantly and having them as just a regular part of life you really don't realize how convenient they are or what improvements they make on your life.
He explained that when codex was introduced it allowed an accessibility that just wasn't possible with scrolls. It's hard to imagine not having chapters or even a glossary or index or anything. Text books would be impossible...actually at times I feel like they already are! I also found it pretty amazing how much cheaper books were once print came into place. I mean it makes sense, but it was still neat to hear at the actual figures. He said it was around 1/5 of the cost to print books rather than have them as a manuscript.

If you can recall one of the problems that talked about from tuesday it was definitely something I never would have thought about or given second guess to. Browsing. We discussed how browsing has basically become obsolete. Prior to thanksgiving I definitely would have been in full compliance with this statement as I couldn't possibly remember the last time I had just "browsed" at books or anything of that sort. But that wasn't exactly the case due to my visit to the University of Lethbridge over the break where I literally did "browse" books looking for things that pertained to my topic. It has been a long time since I have done that! With the technology that we have now days this really has become almost non existent part of life. Dr. Skousen hit the nail on the head when he discussed this.

So I really learned a lot and listening to this presentation by Dr. Skousen gave a lot of room for thought and exploration within the mind which was great. I almost wish we could have more trips to the special collections because both times we have gone have been fantastic and very enlightening according to the topics we've been studying. I definitely would like to hear some other insights and things because i'm sure you picked out different things that I did and had different things impress you! So don't hold back..