History
The coming of the electric light into society had a huge impact as well. Electric lighting has not always been around, and libraries had to function without it. The dawning of the electric light caused a huge impact in the library itself. This 19th-century innovation changed the library, and other public places, from relying on natural light, to a technology that could work no matter what time of day.
Before the electric light, the library was so dependent on daylight that the sun determined its operating hours. Other technologies before the electric light were too unstable; open flamed lighting was just too risky because of the fire implications. Books could not be near open flames, since one accident could destroy the whole building, and its collection.
There was gaslight technology available, though, before electricity came around. It created light in dark spaces, but it was not a stable source. The issue of carbon dioxide poisoning, since its light was fed by natural gas to keep it running, was a huge problem. The issue of intoxication by gas, and the instability of the gas (which could result in explosions), led to the popularization of electricity.
With the electric light, all of these problems discussed above were gone. There was not issue of death by explosion, as with the gaslight, and no more dependence on just natural light. Now, the library could be open at any hour, which created more access to information for the patrons.
In an interesting twist, the 19th century is now having problems adjusting to this new technology that was created. With books produced in the 19th century, they are the most susceptible to electric lighting. Books were in high demand, during the 19th century, so to keep up with the desire of people, manufactures turned to cheap ways to increase outputs of books. This cheap process is now failing under the pressure of modern lights, which can be traced back to the invention that changed libraries in the 19th century.
Read more about this topic: Lighting In Libraries
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Every library should try to be complete on something, if it were only the history of pinheads.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)
“History is the present. That’s why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth.”
—E.L. (Edgar Lawrence)
“I believe that in the history of art and of thought there has always been at every living moment of culture a “will to renewal.” This is not the prerogative of the last decade only. All history is nothing but a succession of “crises”Mof rupture, repudiation and resistance.... When there is no “crisis,” there is stagnation, petrification and death. All thought, all art is aggressive.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)