Following Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press emerged a shift in the humanist movement. Note that prior to the printing press, virtually every book, record, or document was a hand written manuscript by scribes. With the Renaissance expansion to Germany, France, England, and Spain in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, northern humanists found value in the spread of literacy. The problem was the high expense and time consumption tied to the reproduction of books. After the printing press was unveiled, books were multiplied at rapid rates for low costs and libraries soon grew filled with books full of information. We now refer to this time period as an information revolution that facilitated the advancement of science, technology, and scholarship and preservation of knowledge.
Photo: A page from the Apocalype, a block book printed in Europe in the late 1450's. Block books were short hand scribed wood blocks that were carved to illustrate text and pictures. Most block books were replaced by printed type after the invention of the printing press.
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