Which institution has a longer history, the university or the library?

Question

I'm writing an article about the problems facing university libraries in the digital age, and I'm unable to find out whether there were universities before there were libraries or vice versa.

Answer 1

The library must be older, although you had me started thinking how we define a library. I went to Encyclopaedia Britannica's article about libraries. "In earliest times there was no distinction between a record room (or archive) and a library, and in this sense libraries can be said to have existed for almost as long as records have been kept. A temple in the Babylonian town of Nippur, dating from the first half of the 3rd millennium BC, was found to have a number of rooms filled with clay tablets, suggesting a well-stocked archive or library." Public libraries - at least public to some - could be the Roman baths, where scrolls were there for visitors to read, though not to borrow.
If you go to "University" in the Britannica, it says that "The earliest Western institution that can be called a university was a famous medical school that arose at Salerno, Italy, in the 9th century and drew students from all over Europe. It remained merely a medical school, however. The first true university was founded at Bologna late in the 11th century. " If you stretch the definition to include the Greek Academeia in the 4th century BC, there were archival repositories and of course private libraries before that, and the first important institutional libraries in Athens were more or less contemporary with the Academy. So whatever way you look at it - stores of records, private collections, publicly available collections, institutional libraries - libraries must have come first.

Answer 2

Libraries have an older history. There are arguments about which university is the oldest, but they appear to have developed between 900 and 1065 A.D. in several parts of the world. See links below.

The most famous ancient library is the Library of Alexandria. Experts believe it was established around the third century B.C. by Ptolomy II.

To add to its extensive collection, ships coming into port were required to surrender all documents. They were brought back to the library and painstakingly copied and later returned to the owners. Several fires destroyed most of the library.

Benjamin Franklin has been credited with establishing the first public library in America, as well as the first fire brigade.

Answer 3

There were libraries before the time of Christ. The oldest universities came over a thousand years later.

Answer 4

libraries came first. people have also wrote things and kept them in some order- but only certain people could access them. In the ancient times Greece, Rome, Egypt, and other formed civilizations had archives of instuctions for medical percedires (these were most famous and most used, but they kept other papers).
in these times there wasn't really set schooling. it was learning the basics at a trade school and then apprentencing. it wasn't until years later we began primary school and secondary school. universities weren't very popular when they first began because they were expensive and when people went there they were not out working and getting paid.
I don't many of the problems now, except that people have to type and save all the info from the card catalouge on to a computer system.

Answer 5

Probably the library. Archaeologists have found libraries of clay tablets in Mesopotamia that were connected to either palaces or temples. Universities (on any definition) came much later in history.

Answer 6

you cant have a university without books, and a library

Answer 7

the library does