Editing Bookcase (section)

== History ==

=== East Asia ===
[[Image:Tian Yi Chamber book case.JPG|thumb|Bookcase in the [[Tianyi Chamber]], the oldest extant library in China]]
[[File:Buddhist ark used by Chinese Jews.jpg|thumb|A 12th-century illustration of a revolving bookcase for Buddhist scriptures as depicted in Li Jie's architectural treatise the ''[[Yingzao Fashi]]'']]
Revolving bookcases, known as ''zhuanlunzang'' ({{zh|t=轉輪藏|p=zhuàn lún zàng}}), have been documented in [[History of China#Ancient China|imperial China]], and its invention is credited to Fu Xi in 544.<ref name="Chinese Classical Furniture"/> Descriptions of revolving bookcases have been found in 8th- and 9th-century Chinese texts. Revolving bookcases were popularized in Buddhist monasteries during the [[Song dynasty]] under the reign of [[Emperor Taizu of Song|Emperor Taizu]], who ordered the mass printing of the Buddhist [[Tripiṭaka]] scriptures.<ref name="Chinese Classical Furniture"/> An illustration of a revolving bookcase is depicted in Li Jie's architectural treatise the ''[[Yingzao Fashi]]''.<ref name="Chinese Classical Furniture">{{cite book|title=Austere Luminosity of Chinese Classical Furniture.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-EKkblrm6sUC&pg=PA247|year=2001|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-21484-2|pages=246–247}}</ref>

=== Europe ===
Private libraries appeared during the late Roman republic: [[Seneca the Younger|Seneca]] inveighed against libraries fitted out for show by illiterate owners who scarcely read their titles in the course of a lifetime, but displayed the scrolls in bookcases (''[[armaria]]'') of citrus wood inlaid with ivory that ran right to the ceiling: "by now, like bathrooms and hot water, a library is got up as standard equipment for a fine house" (''[[domus]]'').<ref>Seneca, ''De tranquillitate animi'' ix.4–7.</ref>

When books were written by hand and were not produced in great quantities, they were kept in small boxes or chests which owners (usually the wealthy aristocrats or clergy) carried with them. As [[manuscript]] volumes accumulated in [[religious house]]s or in homes of the wealthy, they were stored on shelves or in [[cupboard]]s. These cupboards are the predecessors of today's bookcases. Later the doors were removed, and the evolution of the bookcase proceeded. Even then, however, the volumes were not arranged in the modern fashion. They were either placed in piles upon their sides, or if upright, were ranged with their backs to the wall and their edges outwards. The band of [[leather]], [[vellum]] or [[parchment]] which closed the book was often used for the inscription of the title, which was thus on the fore-edge instead of on the spine. Titles were also commonly written onto the fore-edge.<ref name=EB1911>{{EB1911|inline=1 |wstitle=Bookcase |volume=4 |page=221 |first=James George Joseph |last=Penderel-Brodhurst}}</ref>

It was not until the invention of [[printing]] had greatly reduced the cost of books, thus allowing many more people access to owning books, that it became the practice to write the title on the spine and shelve books with the spine outwards. (This was possible because the books were now in the form of a [[codex]] rather than a scroll.) Early bookcases were usually of [[oak]], which is still deemed by some to be the most appropriate wood for an elegant [[library]].<ref name=EB1911/> The oldest bookcases in England are those in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, which were placed in position in the last year or two of the sixteenth century; in that library are the earliest extant examples of shelved galleries over the flat wall-cases. Long ranges of book-shelves are somewhat severe in appearance, and many attempts have been made by means of carved cornices and pilasters to give them a less austere appearance. These attempts were most successful as in the hands of the English cabinetmakers of the second half of the eighteenth century.<ref name=EB1911/>