When Books Were Shelved Backwards
Chained Library in Hereford, England
It may seem counterintuitive to us, but books were not always shelved to show the spine.
“The earliest books in the Library had their shelf‐marks written on their fore‐edges. These volumes were shelved with their fore-edges, rather than their spines, facing outwards, with the shelf‐mark, written in black ink, on view.” (from Trinity College Dublin)
Until the last century, books were a luxury that most people could not afford, and before Gutenberg gave us the printing press in the 15th century, they were entirely hand-made. A single book was the product of countless hours of work by artisans and scribes (most of them monks). These manuscripts cost many times the average yearly wage of the typical worker. Therefore, few titles other than religious texts were created, and most of those were stored in monasteries or perhaps a wealthy citizen’s private collection.
To protect their investment, libraries (which were only accessible to a few; they…
