From Cave Paintings to the Internet A Chronological and Thematic Database on the History of Information and Media Libraries Outline

Knowledge as Power: The Earliest Systematically Collected Library as Distinct from an Archive
(668 BCE – 627 BCE)

Possible Libraries in Ancient Greece
(Circa 410 BCE)

The Library of Aristotle
(384 BCE – 321 BCE)

The Royal Library of Alexandria: The Largest Collection of Recorded Information in the Ancient World
(Circa 300 BCE)

The Dead Sea Scrolls
(300 BCE – 68 CE)

Destroying Most Records of the Past Along with 460, or More, Scholars
(213 BCE – 206 BCE)

The Origins of Bibliography
(Circa 200 BCE)

The Very Long Process of Canonization of the Hebrew Bible
(Circa 200 BCE – 200 CE)

The Library of Pergamum
(197 BCE – 159 BCE)

Julius Caesar Introduces a Calendar and Plans a Great Library
(46 BCE)

The First-Known Public Library in Rome
(Circa 37 BCE)

Book Trade and Libraries in the Roman Empire
(Circa 30 BCE)

The Emperor Augustus Builds Two Public Libraries
(28 BCE)

The Only Library Preserved Intact from Roman Times
(79 CE)

Probably the Greatest, and Certainly the Longest Lasting of the Roman Libraries
(114 CE)

Pamphilius Establishes a Library and Scriptorium
(200 CE – 300 CE)

The Imperial Library at Nicomedia
(284 CE – 305 CE)

Costs of Professional Writing Measured by the Normal Length of a Line in a Verse of Virgil
(Circa 284 CE – 305 CE)

The Codex Vaticanus
(300 CE – 400 CE)

The Codex Sinaiticus
(300 CE – 400 CE)

Foundation of the Imperial Library of Constantinople
(Circa 330 CE)

Origins of the Lateran Library
(Circa 350 CE – 650)

At the Beginning of the Dark Ages Production of New Manuscripts Essentially Ceased
(Circa 400 CE – 600)

The Codex Argenteus, Written in Silver and Gold Letters on Purple Vellum
(Circa 520)

St. Benedict Introduces Monastic Life to Europe
(529)

Most Important Medical Center During 6th and 7th Centuries
(550 – 650)

Written in the Imperial Scriptorum of Constantinople and Dismembered by Crusaders
(Circa 550)

The Scriptorium and Library at the Vivarium
(Circa 560)

From the Monastery on the Small Island of Iona, the Conversion of Pagan Scotland and Much of Northern England
(Circa 563)

"Source Z"
(Circa 575 – 599)

The End of the Continuity of Late Latin Culture in Most of Italy
(Circa 585)

St. Columbanus Founds the Monastery and Library at Luxeuil
(590)

Augustine of Canterbury Preaches to the Anglo-Saxons
(597)

A Volume Brought by St. Augustine to England in 597
(597)

Foundation of the Monastery and Library at Bobbio
(614)

The Illuminated Gospel Book as a Tool for Evangelization
(627)

A Library Containing "54,000 Rolls"
(627)

Among the Oldest Qu'rans Known
(628)

Foundation of the Monastery on Lindisfarne
(634)

Foundation of Corbie Abbey
(659 – 661)

A Library Containing Manuscripts from All Parts of the Known World
(690)

One of the Oldest, Largest, and Most Signficant Medieval Libraries
(719)

The Foundation of English History
(Circa 731)

Most of the Surviving Greek Literature was Translated into Arabic by 750
(750)

Foundation of the House of Wisdom
(762)

The Finest Library North of the Alps
(767)

Production of Manuscripts and Interest in Books Begins in Germany in the Last Third of the Eighth Century
(Circa 770)

The Codex Aureus of Lorsch and its Dispersal
(778 – 820)

The Educator Alcuin and the Emperor Charlemagne
(780 – 796)

Declined to About 35,000 Volumes
(Circa 790)

Partial Inventory of the Court Library of Charlemagne at Aachen
(Circa 790)

Vikings Sack the Monastery and Library of Lindisfarne in the First Viking Raid on Britain
(January 6, 793)

Some of the Earliest Library Catalogs
(Circa 800)

Charlemagne Renews Book and Library Culture
(800 – 877)

Rules for the Scriptorium and the Library
(Circa 825)

The Only Surviving Major Architectural Drawing from the Fall of the Roman Empire to Circa 1250
(825 – 830)

Inventories of Ninth Century Libraries
(833 – 835)

Vikings Destroy the Library of York Cathedral
(866)

Over 100 Booksellers and 30 Public Libraries in Baghdad
(891)

Over 400,000 Manuscript Volumes at Cordoba
(Circa 961)

The Earliest Extant Complete Text of the Bible in Hebrew
(Circa 1010)

Destruction of the 200,000 Volume Palace Library at Cairo
(1068)

Design and Operation of Medieval Libraries
(Circa 1150)

Norman Crusaders Take Manuscripts as Spoils of War
(1175)

Early Autograph Draft of Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed
(Circa 1185)

Beginnings of an Active Book Trade Outside of Monasteries
(Circa 1200)

Private Libraries in the Muslim World, Destroyed or Plundered by Crusaders
(Circa 1200)

Knowledge of Greek and Greek Texts During the Middle Ages
(Circa 1200 – 1450)

Norman Crusaders Sack Constantinople and Burn the Imperial Library
(1204)

The Greatest Destruction of Muslim Libraries
(1218 – 1220)

Emperor John III Reestablishes the Byzantine Imperial Library
(1222)

No Fewer than Twelve Libraries Available to the Public
(1228)

Formation of the University of Paris
(1257)

So Many Books were Thrown into the Tigris River that they Formed a Bridge that Would Support a Man on Horseback
(1258)

Michael VIII Palaiologos Reestablishes the Imperial Library
(1261)

The Arrangement and Cataloguing of Books
(Circa 1270)

Foundation of the Library of the Sorbonne, and "Perhaps the Earliest Specific and Organized System of Book Arrangement in a Library"
(1271)

"The World's Oldest Continuously Functioning Library for University Academics and Students"
(1276)

Probably the Largest Medieval Library in Europe
(1289)

Organization of the Sorbonne Library, and the Way it Was Physically Arranged
(1290)

Origins of the Vatican Library in the Papal Library
(1303)

Medieval Union Catalogue of Manuscripts
(Circa 1320)

Rules for the Operation of the Library of the Sorbonne
(1321)

The Largest Library in Europe
(1328)

The Largest Library in England
(1331)

The Second Catalogue of the Library of the Sorbonne
(1338)

Philobiblon
(1345)

Medieval Union Catalogue of Manuscripts Names 694 Authors
(Circa 1350)

Charles V Establishes a Royal Library at the Louvre
(1368)

The Papal Library Contains 2,059 Volumes
(1369)

The Papal Library is Scattered
(1370)

Merton College Library Contains Approximately 500 Manuscripts
(1378)

The High Point of Medieval Library Cataloguing
(1389)

The Most Famous Late Medieval Illuminated Manuscript
(Circa 1413 – 1416)

Origins of the Bibliotheca Palatina
(Circa 1436)

The First "Public" Library in Renaissance Europe
(1444)

Establishment of the Vatican Library
(1448)

Printing Decreased the Costs of Books by 80%
(1468)

Partially a Reflection of the Increased Availability of Information after the Development of Printing
(1505)

Collecting Books and Prints in the Early Sixteenth Century
(Circa 1510 – 1539)

Dissolution of the Monasteries Brings Destruction and Dispersal of Libraries
(1536 – 1541)

One of the Largest Libraries formed by an Individual in the 15th Century
(1552)

Establishment of the Bibliotheca Palatina
(Circa 1555)

Origins of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
(1558)

The First Major Antiquarian Collection Assembled in England
(1568)

Opening of the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana
(1571)

Possibly the First Printed Catalogue of Any Library
(1572)

Book Collector Matthew Parker Donates his Library
(1574)

The First French National Bibliography
(1584)

One of the Most Important Private Collections of Manuscripts Assembled in England
(1588)

The First Published Catalogue of any Institutional Library
(1595)

Probably the First "Public" Library in England
(November 8, 1602)

The Second Public Library in Europe
(December 8, 1609)

Possibly the Earliest Extant Examples of Wall-Shelving
(1610 – 1612)

The Largest Historic Chained Library in the World
(1611)

Maximilian Donates the Bibliotheca Palatina to the Vatican
(1622)

One of the Earliest Works on Librarianship
(1627)

The Earliest Documented 15th Century Book in North America
(1635)

The First Book on Librarianship in English
(1650)

One of the Most Significant Private Libraries Preserved Intact from Seventeenth Century England, in its Original Bookcases
(Circa 1650 – 1703)

The Earliest Public Library in the English Speaking World
(1653)

The First Book on Print Collecting
(1666)

The First Anthology on Libraries and Library Science
(1666)

Construction of Samuel Pepys's Bookshelves -- Among the Earliest Extant
(August 17, 1667)

De bibliothecae incendio
(1670)

The First Book Auction in England
(October 31, 1676)

The Bibliotheque Nationale Opens to the Public
(1692)

The First Book Catalogue Published in America
(1693)

First Public Lending Library in North America
(1698)

Founding the Library Company of Philadelphia
(1731)

The British Museum is Founded
(January 11, 1753)

George II Donates the "Old Royal Library"
(1757)

The British Museum Opens
(1759)

The Declaration of Independence
(July 4, 1776)

In One Gigantic Reading Room the Entire "Memory of the World"
(1785)

First Catalogue of the British Museum Library
(1787)

The First National Code of Descriptive Cataloging--Early Use of Cards in Cataloging Books
(Circa 1791)

The First Historical Society in the United States
(January 24, 1791)

The First Free Public Library
(1793)

The Origin of the Library of Congress
(April 24, 1800)

First Report on the Organization of the Library of Congress
(December 18, 1801)

The First Catalogue of the Library of Congress
(April 1802 – October 1803)

The Oldest Society of Bibliophiles
(June 16, 1812)

The Library of Congress is Destroyed During the War of 1812
(August 25, 1814)

Thomas Jefferson's Library Becomes the Core of the New Library of Congress
(Circa September 1814)

Congress Buys Thomas Jefferson's Library
(January 1815)

The First Extensive Catalogue of the Library of Congress
(November 1815)

Origins of the National Library of Medicine
(1836)

The Greatest Private Collector of Manuscripts
(1837 – 1871)

Foundation of the Public Record Office
(1838)

Panizzi's 91 Rules for Standardizing the Cataloguing of Books
(1841)

The First Publically Supported Municipal Library in the U.S.
(1848)

Fire Destroys Two-Thirds of the Library of Congress
(December 24, 1851)

Early Proposal for a National Union Catalogue
(1852)

The Basis for a Catalogue Code
(1856)

Constantin von Tischendorf Discovers the Codex Sinaiticus
(1859)

The Library and Museum Moved to the Site of Lincoln's Assassination
(1867)

Dewey Decimal Classification
(1876)

The Last Library Cataloguing Code Written by One Person
(1876)

ALA is Founded
(October 6, 1876)

Standardization of Library Catalogue Cards
(1877)

Index Medicus Begins
(1879)

A Landmark in Efforts to Organize Information and Make it Searchable
(1880)

The Library of the Future
(1883)

Foundation of The Grolier Club
(January 23, 1884)

The Most Widely Used Library Classification System
(1885)

An Analog Search Engine
(1895)

The Largest and Most Diverse Collection of Medieval Manuscripts in the World
(1896 – 1897)

The Library of Congress Classification
(1897)

The Questionable Quality of Paper
(1898)

The Cumulative Book Index
(February 1898)

The Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature
(1901)

Earliest Fictional Account of a Universal Library
(1901)

LC Cards
(1901)

Study of Museums and Research Libraries
(1905)

The Photomicrographic Book
(1907)

The Wheeler Gift Catalogue
(1909)

"Die Brucke" and its Goals for a World Information Clearing House
(1911)

Destruction of the University Library at Leuven
(August 25, 1914)

6,292 Different Incunabula in North American Libraries
(1919)

A Massive Central Library on Microform for Printing on Demand
(1925)

The International Federation of Library Associations is Founded
(1927)

Dewey Classification Numbers on Catalogue Cards
(1930)

Bradford's Law
(January 26, 1934)

H. G. Wells and the "World Brain"
(1938)

The Total or "Universal Library"
(1939)

Borges' Universe as a Library, or Universal Library
(1941)

The Nazis Destroy the National Library of Serbia
(April 6, 1941)

The Library of Congress Catalogue
(1942 – 1953)

Using Microforms to Conserve Library Space
(1944)

Repeated Dispersal and Eventual Burning of the Greatest Library in Poland
(October 1944)

Bombing of Dresden Destroys Books and Manuscripts
(February – March 1945)

Developing Vannevar Bush's Rapid Selector
(1949)

One of the Earliest Projects in Library Automation
(April 1949)

Compiling a Bibliography by Electric Punched Card Tabulating
(1950)

Applying New Technology to the Searching and Storage of Information
(1951)

Applying Computer Methods to Library Cataloguing and Research
(June 24 – June 27, 1952)

The Uniterm Indexing System
(1953)

Fahrenheit 451
(1953)

Early Library Information Retrieval System
(1954)

Probably the First Widely-Accepted Controlled Vocabulary
(1954)

Machine Methods for Information Searching
(1955)

The Foundation of Citation Analysis
(July 15, 1955)

Standing up to Censorship and McCarthyism
(1956)

Mechanized Encoding of Library Information
(1957)

Satirizing the Role of Automation in Eliminating Jobs, and Librarians
(1957)

Automatic Document Indexing Program
(1958)

The Most Voluminous Printed Catalogue of a Single Library
(1959 – 1972)

One of the First Data Publishing and Retrieval Systems
(1962)

Science Citation Index
(1964)

The First Large Scale Computer-Based Retrospective Search Service Available to the General Public
(January 1964)

"Libraries of the Future"
(1965)

The MARC Cataloguing Standard
(1965 – 1968)

The Management of Archives
(1965)

OCLC is Founded
(1967)

Probably the Largest Printed Bibliography, Complete in 754 Folio Volumes
(1968 – 1981)

The First Digital Library
(July 4, 1971)

Medline is Operational
(October 1971)

The British Library is Established as a Separate Entity
(1972)

A Digital Library of Greek Literature
(1972)

"A Sweeping and Controversial Program"
(1974)

The English Short Title Catalogue
(June 1976)

Finding Additional Pages of the Codex Sinaiticus
(May 1979)

Nexis
(1980)

The Name of the Rose
(1980)

U.S. Newspaper Program Microfilms Newspapers
(1982)

Among the Earliest Practical Digital Libraries
(1985)

Probably the Best Book History and Library Film Set in the Middle Ages
(1986)

Slow Fires
(1987)

OCLC Acquires Publisher of the Dewey Classification System
(1988)

The Worst Library Fire in History
(February 14, 1988)

The American Memory Project
(1990)

The WAIS System for Searching Text is Introduced
(1991)

Pioneering Collaboration of Electronic Librarianship, Journalism and Telecommunications
(1992)

Memory of the World Programme
(1992)

The Electronic Dewey
(1993)

Preserving Access to Digital Information
(1993)

First Library of Digital Images on the Internet
(1993)

First Sourcebook on Digital Libraries?
(December 6, 1993)

Situational Aspects of Electronic Libraries
(December 21, 1993)

The Oldest Surviving Substantial Collection of Buddhist Manuscripts
(1994)

NSF Digital Libraries Initiative
(1994)

Digital Library: Gross Structure and Requirements
(March 1, 1994)

The Digital Library Federation is Founded
(May 1, 1994)

Workshop on Digital Libraries
(May 18 – May 19, 1994)

Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries
(June 19 – June 21, 1994)

The National Digital Library Program is Announced
(October 13, 1994)

Task Force on Digital Archiving
(December 1994)

D-Lib Magazine
(July 1995)

The Kulturarw3 Project
(1996)

The Internet Archive
(1996)

Over One Billion Documents
(1996)

The First ACM International Conference on Digital Libraries
(March 20 – March 23, 1996)

IEEE Technical Committee on Digital Libraries
(1997)

California Digital Library
(1997)

How Much Information is There?
(1997)

BnF Gallica is Launched
(1997)

RLG DigiNews Begins Publication
(April 15, 1997)

Digital Scriptorium
(November 1997)

On the Preservation of Knowledge in the Electronic Age
(1998)

A New Kind of National Information Infrastructure
(March 1998)

Early English Books Online
(1999)

"Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe"
(1999)

How Much Information?
(2000)

Over 5,000,000 Items in the National Digital Library Program
(2000)

MINERVA to Preserve Open-Access Web Resources
(2000)

National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program
(December 21, 2000)

The Wayback Machine
(2001)

The Digital Preservation Coalition
(January 2001)

Open Archival Information System
(January 2001)

Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper
(April 2001)

Physical versus Digital Information in Libraries
(November 2001)

Over 500,000 Egyptian Papyri Survive
(2002)

Trusted Digital Repositories: Attributes and Responsibilities
(May 2002)

How Much Information?
(2003)

Collecting and Preserving the World Wide Web
(February 23, 2003)

The First Automatic Page-Turning Scanner
(April 7 – April 9, 2003)

Netpreserve.org
(July 2003)

"Vegetal and Mineral Memory: The Future of Books"
(November 1, 2003)

OCLC Serves More than 50,000 Libraries, Contains 56 Million Records
(2004)

Approximately 530 miles of Bookshelves
(2004)

The National Digital Newspaper Program
(March 2004)

The Index-Catalogue Goes Online
(May 1, 2004)

The Site of the Original Library of Alexandria
(May 12, 2004)

The Google Print Project
(October 2004)

From the Sixth Century to the Twenty-First
(2005)

The Century of Science Initiative
(January 2005)

The European Library is Launched
(March 17, 2005)

Proposal for a World Digital Library
(June 6, 2005)

LibraryThing is Founded
(August 29, 2005)

A University Library Intended to Contain Very Few Physical Books
(September 6, 2005)

Preservation of Digital Objects
(September 15 – September 16, 2005)

300 Years to Index All the World's Information
(October 8, 2005)

The Open Content Alliance
(October 25, 2005)

A Plan to Create a World Digital Library
(November 11, 2005)

Google Books
(December 2005)

Maybe the World's Largest Physical Library
(December 2005)

The Google Librarian Newsletter
(December 19, 2005)

The Wayback Machine
(2006)

Data Curation as a Profession
(2006)

Future-Proofing Websites
(January 19 – January 20, 2006)

A Research Library Based on Historical Collections of the Internet Archive
(February 2006)

Access to Nearly One Million Archive Collection Descriptions
(March 2006)

Digital Library Evolution
(March 2006)

The Changing Nature of the Catalogue. . . .
(March 17, 2006)

A Critical Review at the Library of Congress
(April 3, 2006)

"The entire works of humankind, from the beginning of recorded history, in all languages" would amount to 50 petabytes of data.
(May 14, 2006)

OCLC Merges with RLG
(July 1, 2006)

The EPA Begins to Close its Scientific Libraries
(November 20, 2006)

Demanding that the U.S. EPA Desist from Destroying its Libraries
(November 30, 2006)

LC Launches RSS
(December 18, 2006)

The Universal Digital Library has Scanned over 1,000,000 Books
(2007)

It Would Take 1800 Years to Convert the Paper Records . . . .
(March 10, 2007)

DROID
(September 27, 2007)

Codex in Crisis
(November 5, 2007)

The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Second Life
(2008)

Toward a World Digital Mathematics Library
(July 27, 2008)

A Virtual Course on Teaching in Virtual Worlds
(August 4, 2008)

Viewing the Illustrations of a Journal Article in Three Dimensions
(September 30, 2008)

Tenth Century Text Published on Google Books
(October 29, 2008)

Europeana, the European Digital Library, Museum and Archive
(November 20, 2008)

"Google and the Future of Books"
(February 12, 2009)

The World Digital Library Launches
(April 21, 2009)

British Literary Manuscripts Online
(May 31, 2009)

The WARC Format as an International File Preservation Standard
(June 1, 2009)

Stanford University Libraries & Archives in Second Life
(July 31, 2009)

" A Library to Last Forever" ??
(October 9, 2009)

Distinctive Special Collections in the Digital Age
(October 15 – October 16, 2009)

French Alternative to Google Books Formed
(December 17, 2009)

The Vatican Library Plans the Scanning of all its Manuscripts into the FITS Document Format
(March 24, 2010)

The Library of Congress to Preserve All "Tweets"
(April 14, 2010)

Using the Twitter Archive for Historical Research
(April 30, 2010)

Stanford's New Engineering Library Will House Few Physical Books
(July 8, 2010)

There are "129,864,880" Different Books in the World
(August 5, 2010)