Mark this day
Books help people communicate their ideas across the globe, they stand as evidence of history and culture…for the next generation to know how their predecessors lived. Not only the next generation, the present generation also.
April 23 was chosen as World Book Day at UNESCO’s general conference, held in Paris in 1995 where it paid a worldwide tribute to
books and authors on this date, encouraging everyone, in particular youngsters, to discover the pleasure of reading and gain a renewed respect for the irreplaceable contributions of those who have furthered the social and cultural progress of humanity.
By celebrating this day throughout the world, UNESCO is promoting reading, publishing and the protection of intellectual property through copyright.
Books took different forms at various points of time. In the initial stages, nomads and inhabitants of the world painted their ideas in caves and in anything they found.
According to history, the first
books were written in baked tablets. Egyptians in the past were writing on papyrus from around 3,500 BC. Papyrus was made from the fibrous stalks of reeds.
The hieroglyphic method of writing using pictures and symbols was used before people started writing.
In 1,000 BC people in the Mediterranean started using alphabets. The Romans and Greeks started developing their alphabets.
In AD 105, Tsia Lun invented paper in China, and after a long time, the use of paper passed on to India.
Johann Gutenberg, a goldsmith in Germany, invented printing in 1455. Subterfuge was the man who first started a publication called ‘The Times’.
Then came different ways of printing and the advent of modern-day printing techniques, due to which printing of books in large quantities was possible and the newspaper industry also saw drastic changes in the method of composing, typesetting and printing.
It is said due to the advent of TV and other electronic media, the habit of book reading would die. But the recently concluded
book fair proved that wrong. Thousands of people visited the book fair and bought various books.
According to famous writer
Anuradha Ramanan, people are still reading books. People mostly in the age group of 10-20 see more TV and use the Internet. But people above the age of 50 read books.
A new entrant in the book arena is ‘E-novel’ which cannot be taken as a threat to books. It helps people across continents
read books simultaneously.
According to Thirunavukarasar of Nizhal Publication, “The cost of printing has gone up, so the cost of books is also rising.” The issue of photocopying is no threat to the Tamil book industry, he added.
However, let us hope that the habit of reading books remains or we may have to take our future generations to museums to show them that there were such things as books.
N Arun Kumar
