Amazon.com description: Product Description: Five thousand years ago, the Sumerian people created writing and established libraries to preserve the prayers, hymns and documents necessary for progress both in religion and commerce. Ever since, libraries have reflected and shaped the societies that created them by preserving the thoughts and actions of their ancestral cultures, and transmitting them through time. A librarian for more than 30 years, Fred Lerner has based this volume on "The Story of Libraries" (Continuum, 1998). More concise, and with twice as many illustrations, it should appeal to secondary school students, as well as to older readers, who want an international history of book collection, from the invention of writing to the computer age.