what is old is new again

Regarding catalogs, what is old is new again.

I was recently reading a bit of Washington Irving, specifically, "The
mutability of literature: A colloquy in Westminster Abbey" in his The
Sketch Book written around 1819. In the story the narrator takes a
walk, wonders into a dark room of Westminster Abbey, and begins
having a conversataion with a book. Go figure.

What is most interesting to me is the way the number of books
available to readers is described as a "torrent", a "river", and a
"sea". "It will soon be an employement of a lifetime merely to learn
their [authors'] names.... erudition will be little better than a
mere walking catalogue."

Below is the most relevant (but long) paragraph from the story. The
entire story is a short read:

   ...In like manner the works of genius and learning decline, and
   make way for subsequent productions. Language gradually varies,
   and with it fade away the writings of authors who have flourished
   their allotted time; otherwise, the creative powers of genius
   would overstock the world, and the mind would be completely
   bewildered in the endless mazes of literature. Formerly there
   were some restraints on this excessive multiplication. Works had
   to be transcribed by hand, which was a slow and laborious
   operation; they were written either on parchment, which was
   expensive, so that one work was often erased to make way for
   another; or on papyrus, which was fragile and extremely
   perishable. Authorship was a limited and unprofitable craft,
   pursued chiefly by monks in the leisure and solitude of their
   cloisters. The accumulation of manuscripts was slow and costly,
   and confined almost entirely to monasteries. To these
   circumstances it may, in some measure, be owing that we have not
   been inundated by the intellect of antiquity; that the fountains
   of thought have not been broken up, and modern genius drowned in
   the deluge. But the inventions of paper and the press have put an
   end to all these restraints. They have made every one a writer,
   and enabled every mind to pour itself into print, and diffuse
   itself over the whole intellectual world. The consequences are
   alarming. The stream of literature has swollen into a torrent-
   augmented into a river- expanded into a sea. A few centuries
   since, five or six hundred manuscripts constituted a great
   library; but what would you say to libraries such as actually
   exist, containing three or four hundred thousand volumes; legions
   of authors at the same time busy; and the press going on with
   fearfully increasing activity, to double and quadruple the
   number? Unless some unforseen mortality should break out among
   the progeny of the muse, now that she has become so prolific, I
   tremble for posterity. I fear the mere fluctuation of language
   will not be sufficient. Criticism may do much. It increases with
   the increase of literature, and resembles one of those salutary
   checks on population spoken of by economists. All possible
   encouragement, therefore, should be given to the growth of
   critics, good or bad. But I fear all will be in vain; let
   criticism do what it may, writers will write, printers will
   print, and the world will inevitably be overstocked with good
   books. It will soon be the employment of a lifetime merely to
   learn their names. Many a man of passable information, at the
   present day, reads scarcely any thing but reviews; and before
   long a man of erudition will be little better than a mere walking
   catalogue.

   http://infomotions.com/etexts/literature/american/1800-1899/irving-
mutability-582.txt

What is old is new again.

--
Eric Lease Morgan
University Libraries of Notre Dame

(574) 631-8604