We can hardly overestimate the enormous effort needed to produce even a limited library in earlier ages. Manuscripts had to be located, borrowed, or stolen, and then copied. It was a tedious task and not as well organized among Jews as in the monastic Christian world. Jewish scribes copied Torahs and when they had time other books. A book burning as that of the Talmud in 1244 at Paris was more than a symbolic attack on Judaism , it threatened the intellectual life of the French Jewish communities.
Mass distribution of books and their ideas became possible through the invention of the movable type. Later improvements in printing made the printed book cheap and readily available.” The current evolution into digital media marks a further step in access, storage and distribution of ideas unless new barriers are imposed. This trek through the millennia may now bring universal access to human knowledge with little cost- a dream come true.
As the Jewish tradition has mandated a high degree of literacy books were always especially valued and in most centuries rare in every community. Precocious youngsters in dozens of generations struggled to gain access to the library of the wealthy. Even in the age of printing, books were expensive and inaccessible. As late as the sixteenth century, Moses Isserles (1525-1572) Shulhan Arukh, Hoshen Mishpat 292:30) stated that if books are not available for study, the community may mandate that they be made available free of charge.
The invention of Gutenberg should have changed that, but there were economic obstacles. Printing was expensive; the equipment was Costly; skilled personnel had to be engaged for typesetting in languages which they may not have known. Paper and other supplies had to be purchased in large quantities before any book appeared. The printer looked for ways of protecting his product from competition; monopoly over distribution granted by a government or consumer group was sought and provided. In the semi-autonomous Jewish