Ancient public library discovered in Germany

Re:Ancient public library discovered in Germany by teilo on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @04:51PM (#17656998)

I think the whole "public" library theory is a bit off. Just because it was a public building does not mean it was anything resembling what we would call a public library. More likely, it was a government library, like a registrar, or for tax documents, census data, or something similar.

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Re:Ancient public library discovered in Germany by sandworm101 on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @10:42PM (#17659234)

That depends on perspective. Certainly any building that banned women would not sound very "public" today, but within the ancient context would fit the model. It may have been open to citizens, men, non-slaves, who could read. That would have been a very small group. Setting aside our modern notions of equality, that sounds like a public library to me.

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Re:Ancient public library discovered in Germany by teilo on Wednesday August 01, 2018 @10:23AM (#17662725)

Except all we know is that:

1) It was in a market area.

2) It was well built.

3) It had cubby holes that probably held scrolls.

That's all. The rest is speculation.

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Re:Ancient public library discovered in Germany by sandworm101 on Wednesday August 01, 2018 @10:53AM (#17663002)

That's all we have from digging up most historical buildings. People build careers on determining a building's use based on things like door width and wall thickness.

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