Blogpost 2

Second week of research

This week I had a lot more success with my research than last week, although I was still quite taken aback at how some of my research progressed. As I mentioned last week, the plan this week was to collect resources I had reserved and also ask a reference librarian for help. Unfortunately, although the online systems didn’t seem to show this, most of the resources I reserved are on loan and aren’t due back until about 21^st September, so I have to patiently wait. I think someone else must be researching a similar topic to me. I was also shocked to find out that many of the items are listed as “not been seen since …” and locating them is becoming quite difficult. However I did manage to borrow a few resources which I had fun going through. The most useful text seem to be Junior non-fiction books but they still contain a fair bit of useful information, just not quite as in-depth as I had hoped for. The information and dates are a good starting point though.

My reference interview wasn’t quite so successful. In fact I came away without any extra information or resources at all. The library was quite busy and the one reference librarian did seem quite flustered but wasn’t interested in me or my query and didn’t use any of the skills we have been learning about. The only benefit was that she reserved a book for me, however by the time she got around to ringing the other branch to get it put aside for me; someone else had already borrowed it, so I am now waiting for that book too. I have learnt now though that I need to be more forceful in the way I request things if the person I am talking to is not paying enough attention to my request and needs and I have also learnt how it feels to receive such bad customer service in a library which I can draw on when on the other side of the desk.

How did humans communicate before printing?

From the resources I did borrow, I managed to more accurately pinpoint the dates and terms I was after. This means I can be more accurate in my online searching and easily find reputable sites on the topics I’m after, avoiding things such as stamp art and screen printing.

This week I decided to concentrate mostly on pre-printing days. In other words how did humans communicate before printing presses were invented? This is a massive and extremely interesting topic in itself and spans across thousands of years with the beginning of hundreds of languages and ways of writing them. However there are several stand out progressions that I plan to focus on such as:

·         Sumerian writing in 3,500BC – Clay tablets

·         First quill pens used 500BC

·         Paper created in China 105AD

·         Codex books replaced scrolls 400AD

·         Block printing developed in China 868AD

·         Movable type printing invented in China 1040AD

(Ganeri 1995, p.28)

Slave treaty tablet

"Treaty c.1480BC for fugitive slaves. Clay cuneiform tablet." (Wikimedia Commons 2011) – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ASlave_treaty_tablet.jpg .

Cite

Ganeri, A 1995, From reed pen to word processor: the story of writing and printing, Signs of the times, Evan Brothers Limited, London.

Graham, I 2000, Books and newspapers, Communications close up, Evan Brothers Limited, London.

Green, D 2004, The serendipity machine: a voyage of discovery through the unexpected world of computers, Allen & Unwin, NSW.

Oxlade, C 2011, The computer, Tales of invention, Raintree, London.

Tinney, S 1998, ‘Texts, tablets, and teaching’, Expedition, vol. 40, no. 2, p. 40, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 10 September 2012.

Wikimedia Commons 2011, ‘Slave treaty tablet’ [image], File: Slave treaty tablet, Wikimedia Commons, viewed 10 September 2012 http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ASlave_treaty_tablet.jp.