Libraries Timeline Outline

The Earliest Surviving Literary or Library Catalogues
(Circa 2,000 BCE)

Survey of Ancient Libraries and Archives in the Near East
(1,500 BCE – 300 BCE)

The Earliest Surviving Detailed Bibliographical Entries
(Circa 1,400 BCE)

Possible Libraries in Ancient Greece
(Circa 410 BCE)

The Archive or Library in the Temple of Edfu
(237 BCE – 57 BCE)

The Very Long Process of Canonization of the Hebrew Bible
(Circa 200 BCE – 200 CE)

The Earliest Bibliographical Classification System
(Circa 53 BCE – 23 CE)

Book Trade and Libraries in the Roman Empire
(Circa 30 BCE)

Origen's Hexapla: Made Possible by the Codex Form, and the First Codices to Display Information in Tabular Form
(Circa 234 CE – 253 CE)

The Persecution, Imprisonment and Torture of Origen
(249 CE – 251 CE)

Reconstruction of the Contents of the Library of Eusebius
(Circa 280 CE – 339 CE)

Costs of Professional Writing Measured by the Normal Length of a Line in a Verse of Virgil
(303 CE)

The Role of Books in the Rule of the Earliest Christian Monasteries
(318 CE – 348 CE)

Origins of the Lateran Library
(Circa 350 CE – 650)

Foundation of the Imperial Library of Constantinople
(Circa 357 CE)

Early Christians May Have Destroyed What Remained of the Alexandrian Library Because of its Pagan Contents
(391 CE)

At the Beginning of the Dark Ages Production of New Manuscripts Essentially Ceased
(Circa 400 CE – 600)

The Imperial Library of Constantinople is Damaged by Fire
(475 CE)

The Deterioration of Libraries, Publishing and Educational Institutions in Italy by the Sixth Century
(534)

Perhaps the First Library in Japan
(Circa 550 – 645)

The End of the Continuity of Late Latin Culture in Most of Italy
(Circa 585)

The First State Libraries in Japan
(702)

Most of the Surviving Greek Literature was Translated into Arabic by 750
(750)

The Oldest Surviving Book in the German Language
(765 – 775)

Production of Manuscripts and Interest in Books Begins in Germany in the Last Third of the Eighth Century
(Circa 770)

Declined to About 35,000 Volumes
(Circa 790)

Partial Inventory of the Court Library of Charlemagne at Aachen
(Circa 790)

Some of the Earliest Library Catalogs
(Circa 800)

Charlemagne Renews Book and Library Culture
(800 – 877)

Inventories of Ninth Century Libraries
(833 – 835)

Over 100 Booksellers and 30 Public Libraries in Baghdad
(891)

The First Western Medical School
(Circa 950)

Perhaps the Earliest Recycling of Paper
(1031)

Destruction of the 200,000 Volume Palace Library at Cairo
(1068)

The Design and Operation of Medieval Libraries
(Circa 1150)

Norman Crusaders Take Manuscripts as Spoils of War
(1175)

Beginnings of an Active Book Trade Outside of Monasteries
(Circa 1200)

Private Libraries in the Muslim World, Destroyed or Plundered by Crusaders
(Circa 1200)

Knowledge of Greek and Greek Texts During the Middle Ages
(Circa 1200 – 1450)

The Vatican Archives Follow the Movements of the Pope
(1245 – 1783)

Probably the Largest Medieval Library in Europe
(1289)

Organization of the Sorbonne Library, and the Way it Was Physically Arranged
(1290)

Medieval Union Catalogue of Manuscripts
(Circa 1320)

Rules for the Operation of the Library of the Sorbonne
(1321)

The Second Catalogue of the Library of the Sorbonne
(1338)

Medieval Union Catalogue of Manuscripts Names 694 Authors
(Circa 1350)

The Papal Library Contains 2,059 Volumes
(1369)

The High Point of Medieval Library Cataloguing
(1389)

Saint Catherine in her Study with her Revolving Bookstand
(Circa 1399 – 1416)

Possibly the Earliest Physician's Library Preserved Intact
(1474)

The First Catalogue of the Vatican Library
(1475)

Rules of the Library, Merton College, Oxford, 1484
(November 3, 1484)

Collecting Books and Prints in the Early Sixteenth Century
(Circa 1510 – 1539)

Surrealist Portrait of the Librarian
(1566)

The First Major Antiquarian Collection Assembled in England
(1568)

Opening of the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana
(1571)

Possibly the First Printed Catalogue of Any Library
(1572)

Book Collector Matthew Parker Donates his Library
(1574)

The First Printed Catalogue of a Portion of a Public Library
(1575)

The First French National Bibliography
(1584)

Design and Construction of the Vatican Library
(Circa 1587)

Perhaps the Most Important Private Collection of Manuscripts Ever Collected in England
(1588 – 1631)

The First Published Catalogue of any Institutional Library
(1595)

The First "Major" History of Libraries
(1602)

Probably the First "Public" Library in England
(November 8, 1602)

The Second Public Library in Europe
(December 8, 1609)

Possibly the Earliest Extant Examples of Wall-Shelving
(1610 – 1612)

Leiden University Library in 1610
(1610)

Maximilian Donates the Bibliotheca Palatina to the Vatican
(1622)

One of the Earliest Works on Librarianship
(1627)

The Earliest Documented 15th Century Book in North America
(1635)

The First Institution of Higher Learning in the U.S.
(1636)

The First Book on Librarianship in English
(1650)

The First Book on Print Collecting
(1666)

The First Anthology on Libraries and Library Science
(1666)

Construction of Samuel Pepys's Bookshelves -- Among the Earliest Extant
(August 17, 1667)

De bibliothecae incendio
(1670)

The First Book Auction in England
(October 31, 1676)

The Bibliotheque Nationale Opens to the Public
(1692)

The First Book Catalogue Published in America
(1693)

The First Country-Wide Printed Union Catalogue of Manuscripts
(1697)

First Public Lending Library in North America
(1698)

The First Book Auction Conducted in Paris for Which a Catalogue was Printed
(July – December 1706)

The Statute of Anne: The First Copyright Statute
(1709)

Founding the Library Company of Philadelphia
(July 1, 1731)

The First Continent-Wide Union Catalogue of Manuscripts
(1739)

The British Museum is Founded
(January 11, 1753)

George II Donates the "Old Royal Library"
(1757)

The British Museum Opens
(1759)

The Declaration of Independence
(July 4 – August 2, 1776)

In One Gigantic Reading Room the Entire "Memory of the World"
(1785)

First Catalogue of the British Museum Library
(1787)

The First National Code of Descriptive Cataloging--Early Use of Cards in Cataloging Books
(Circa 1791)

The First Historical Society in the United States
(January 24, 1791)

Printing as a Way to Preserve Information
(February 18, 1791)

The First Free Public National Library
(1793)

Proposal for a National Bibliography of France
(1793 – 1794)

The Origin of the Library of Congress
(April 24, 1800)

First Report on the Organization of the Library of Congress
(December 18, 1801)

The First Catalogue of the Library of Congress
(April 1802 – October 1803)

The Oldest Society of Bibliophiles
(June 16, 1812)

The Library of Congress is Destroyed During the War of 1812
(August 25, 1814)

Thomas Jefferson's Library Becomes the Core of the New Library of Congress
(Circa September 1814)

Congress Buys Thomas Jefferson's Library
(January 1815)

The First Extensive Catalogue of the Library of Congress
(November 1815)

Foundation of the Ecole nationale des chartes
(February 22, 1821)

The First Attempt Since that of Montfaucon (1739) to Publish a Union Catalogue of Manuscripts in European Libraries
(1830 – 1853)

Origins of the National Library of Medicine
(1836)

The Greatest Private Collector of Manuscripts in the Nineteenth Century
(1837 – 1871)

Foundation of the Public Record Office
(1838)

Panizzi's 91 Rules for Standardizing the Cataloguing of Books
(1841)

One of the Earliest Photographs of Books
(1843 – 1844)

First Installments of the First Government-Sponsored National Union Catalogue of Manuscripts
(1846 – 1849)

The First Publically Supported Municipal Library in the U.S.
(1848)

Foundation of the Boston Public Library
(1848)

Report on Select Committee on Public Libraries
(July 23, 1849)

The Public Libraries Act of 1850
(August 14, 1850)

Fire Destroys Two-Thirds of the Library of Congress
(December 24, 1851)

Early Proposal for a National Union Catalogue
(1852)

Keyword in Context Indexing
(1856)

Constantin von Tischendorf Discovers the Codex Sinaiticus
(1859)

The First Comprehensive Account of the Development of Libraries
(1859)

The Library and Museum Moved to the Site of Lincoln's Assassination
(1867)

The First Catalogue of a Library on Computing and its History
(1872)

Calling for a Central Bibliographical Bureau Which Would Also Store Images
(July 25 – November 29, 1872)

Dewey Decimal Classification
(1876 – 1885)

The Last Library Cataloguing Code Written by One Person
(1876)

Among the Most Unusual of Library Organizations: The Light House Traveling Library
(1876)

ALA is Founded
(October 6, 1876)

Standardization of Library Catalogue Cards
(1877)

Index Medicus Begins
(1879)

A Landmark in Efforts to Organize Information and Make it Searchable
(1880)

The First Complete Catalogue of the British Museum Following Panizzi's Rules
(1881 – 1905)

Imagining a Library One Hundred Years in the Future
(1883)

The First Carnegie Library
(1883)

Foundation of The Grolier Club
(January 23, 1884)

Establishment of the First Library School, the "School of Library Economy"
(1887)

An Analog Search Engine to Organize All the World's Knowledge
(1895)

The Largest and Most Diverse Collection of Medieval Manuscripts in the World
(1896 – 1902)

The Library of Congress Classification
(1897)

The Questionable Quality of Paper
(1898)

The Cumulative Book Index
(February 1898)

The Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature
(1901)

The Earliest Fictional Account of a Universal Library, Foreshadowing the Virtual Library on the Internet
(1901)

LC Cards
(1901)

Study of Museums and Research Libraries
(1905)

The Photomicrographic Book
(1907)

The First Library of Rare Science Books Formed by an American
(1908)

The Wheeler Gift Catalogue of the History of Electricity and Telegraphy
(1909)

"Die Brucke" and its Goals for a World Information Clearing House
(June 11, 1911 – 1913)

Destruction of the University Library at Leuven
(August 25, 1914)

6,292 Different Incunabula in North American Libraries
(1919)

A Massive Central Library on Microform for Printing on Demand
(1925)

The International Federation of Library Associations is Founded
(1927)

A Portion of a 15th Century Medical Library for Sale in 1929
(1929)

Dewey Classification Numbers on Catalogue Cards
(1930)

Bradford's Law
(January 26, 1934)

H. G. Wells and the "World Brain"
(November 20, 1936 – 1938)

Fantasies of an All-Encompassing Archive or "Universal Library"
(1939)

The First Holocaust Museum
(September 1, 1939)

Borges' Universe as a Library, or Universal Library or Archive
(1941)

The Nazis Destroy the National Library of Serbia
(April 6, 1941)

The Library of Congress Catalogue
(1942 – 1953)

Using Microforms to Conserve Library Space
(1944)

Repeated Dispersal and Eventual Burning of the Greatest Library in Poland
(October 1944)

Bombing of Dresden Destroys Books and Manuscripts
(February – March 1945)

One of the Earliest Projects in Library Automation
(April 1949)

Developing Vannevar Bush's Rapid Selector, and How it Worked
(November 1949)

Compiling a Bibliography by Electric Punched Card Tabulating
(1950)

Applying New Technology to the Searching and Storage of Information
(1951)

Applying Computer Methods to Library Cataloguing and Research
(June 24 – June 27, 1952)

The Uniterm Indexing System
(1953)

"Fahrenheit 451"
(1953 – 2011)

Early Library Information Retrieval System
(1954)

Probably the First Widely-Accepted Controlled Vocabulary
(1954 – 1960)

Machine Methods for Information Searching
(1955)

The Foundation of Citation Analysis
(July 15, 1955)

Standing up to Censorship and McCarthyism
(1956)

Mechanized Encoding of Library Information
(1957)

Satirizing the Role of Automation in Eliminating Jobs, and Librarians
(1957)

Automatic Document Indexing Program
(1958)

The Most Voluminous Printed Catalogue of a Single Library
(1959 – 1972)

One of the First Data Publishing and Retrieval Systems
(1962)

Science Citation Index
(1964)

The First Large Scale Computer-Based Retrospective Search Service Available to the General Public
(January 1964)

"Libraries of the Future"
(1965)

The MARC Cataloguing Standard
(1965 – 1968)

The Management of Archives
(1965)

OCLC is Founded
(July 5, 1967)

Probably the Largest Printed Bibliography, Complete in 754 Folio Volumes
(1968 – 1981)

Invention of eBooks: The First Digital Library
(July 4, 1971)

The First Library to do Online Cataloguing
(August 26, 1971)

Medline is Operational
(October 1971)

The British Library is Established as a Separate Entity
(1972)

A Digital Library of Greek Literature
(1972)

"A Sweeping and Controversial Program"
(1974)

The English Short Title Catalogue
(June 1976)

Finding Additional Pages of the Codex Sinaiticus
(May 1979)

Nexis is Introduced
(1980)

The Name of the Rose
(1980)

U.S. Newspaper Program Microfilms Newspapers
(1982)

The Perseus Digital Library Project
(1985)

Among the Earliest Practical Digital Libraries
(1985)

Probably the Best Book History and Library Film Set in the Middle Ages
(1986)

Slow Fires
(1987)

OCLC Acquires Publisher of the Dewey Classification System
(1988)

Probably the Worst Library Fire in History
(February 14, 1988)

The National Center for Biotechnology Information is Founded
(November 4, 1988)

The American Memory Project
(1990)

The WAIS System for Searching Text is Introduced
(1991)

Pioneering Collaboration of Electronic Librarianship, Journalism and Telecommunications
(1992)

The Memory of the World Program
(1992)

The Electronic Dewey
(1993)

Preserving Access to Digital Information
(1993)

First Library of Digital Images on the Internet
(1993)

The First Sourcebook on Digital Libraries?
(December 6, 1993)

Situational Aspects of Electronic Libraries
(December 21, 1993)

NSF Digital Libraries Initiative
(1994)

Digital Library: Gross Structure and Requirements
(March 1, 1994)

The Digital Library Federation is Founded
(May 1, 1994)

The Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries
(June 19 – June 21, 1994)

The National Digital Library Program is Announced
(October 13, 1994)

Task Force on Digital Archiving
(December 1994)

Online Searchable Archive of Over 1000 Academic Journals
(1995)

D-Lib Magazine
(July 1995)

The Kulturarw3 Project
(1996)

Brewster Kahle Founds the Internet Archive
(1996)

LexisNexis Exceeds One Billion Documents
(1996)

The First ACM International Conference on Digital Libraries
(March 20 – March 23, 1996)

IEEE Technical Committee on Digital Libraries
(1997)

California Digital Library
(1997)

How Much Information is There?
(1997)

BnF Gallica is Launched
(1997)

RLG DigiNews Begins Publication
(April 15, 1997)

Digital Scriptorium
(November 1997)

Origins of Australia's Web Archive
(1998)

On the Preservation of Knowledge in the Electronic Age
(1998)

Early English Books Online
(1999)

"Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe"
(1999)

How Much Information?
(2000)

Over 5,000,000 Items in the National Digital Library Program
(2000)

MINERVA to Preserve Open-Access Web Resources
(2000)

National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program
(December 21, 2000)

The Wayback Machine
(2001)

The Digital Preservation Coalition
(January 2001)

Open Archival Information System
(January 2001)

Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper
(April 2001)

Physical versus Digital Information in Libraries
(November 2001)

Over 500,000 Egyptian Papyri Survive
(2002)

Trusted Digital Repositories: Attributes and Responsibilities
(May 2002)

How Much Information?
(2003)

Collecting and Preserving the World Wide Web
(February 23, 2003)

The First Automatic Page-Turning Scanner
(April 7 – April 9, 2003)

Netpreserve.org
(July 2003)

Amazon Introduces "Search Inside" 120,000 Books
(October 23, 2003)

"Vegetal and Mineral Memory: The Future of Books"
(November 1, 2003)

OCLC Serves More than 50,000 Libraries, Contains 56 Million Records
(2004)

Approximately 530 miles of Bookshelves
(2004)

The National Digital Newspaper Program
(March 2004)

The Index-Catalogue Goes Online
(May 1, 2004)

The Site of the Original Library of Alexandria
(May 12, 2004)

The Google Print Project
(October 2004)

From the Sixth Century to the Twenty-First
(2005)

The European Library is Launched
(March 17, 2005)

Proposal for a World Digital Library
(June 6, 2005)

LibraryThing is Founded
(August 29, 2005)

A University Library Intended to Contain Very Few Physical Books
(September 6, 2005)

Preservation of Digital Objects
(September 15 – September 16, 2005)

Google Print Morphs in Two
(October 2005)

It Could Take 300 Years to Index All the World's Information
(October 8, 2005)

The Open Content Alliance is Founded
(October 25, 2005)

A Plan to Create a World Digital Library
(November 11, 2005)

Google Books
(December 2005)

Maybe the World's Largest Physical Library
(December 2005)

The Heritage Health Index Report on the State of America's Collections
(December 2005)

The Google Librarian Newsletter
(December 19, 2005)

The Wayback Machine
(2006)

Data Curation as a Profession
(2006)

A Research Library Based on Historical Collections of the Internet Archive
(February 2006)

Access to Nearly One Million Archive Collection Descriptions
(March 2006)

Studies on Digital Library Evolution
(March 2006)

The Changing Nature of the Catalogue. . . .
(March 17, 2006)

A Critical Review at the Library of Congress
(April 3, 2006)

"The entire works of humankind, from the beginning of recorded history, in all languages" would amount to 50 petabytes of data.
(May 14, 2006)

OCLC Merges with RLG
(July 1, 2006)

The EPA Begins to Close its Scientific Libraries
(November 20, 2006)

Demanding that the U.S. EPA Desist from Destroying its Libraries
(November 30, 2006)

The Universal Digital Library has Scanned over 1,000,000 Books
(2007)

DROID, an Archives Analysis and Identification Tool
(September 27, 2007)

Codex in Crisis
(November 5, 2007)

The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in "Second Life"
(2008)

Toward a World Digital Mathematics Library
(July 27, 2008)

Viewing the Illustrations of a Journal Article in Three Dimensions
(September 30, 2008)

Creation of the HathiTrust Digital Library
(October 2008 – March 2012)

Europeana, the European Digital Library, Museum and Archive
(November 20, 2008)

"Google and the Future of Books"
(February 12, 2009)

The World Digital Library Launches
(April 21, 2009)

The WARC Format as an International File Preservation Standard
(June 1, 2009)

" A Library to Last Forever" ??
(October 9, 2009)

Distinctive Special Collections in the Digital Age
(October 15 – October 16, 2009)

French Alternative to Google Books Formed
(December 17, 2009)

The Vatican Library Plans the Scanning of all its Manuscripts into the FITS Document Format
(March 24, 2010)

The Library of Congress to Preserve All "Tweets"
(April 14, 2010)

Using the Twitter Archive for Historical Research
(April 30, 2010)

Stanford's New Engineering Library Will House Few Physical Books
(July 8, 2010)

There are "129,864,880" Different Books in the World
(August 5, 2010)

Possibly the First Academic Library with No Physical Books
(September 19, 2010)

NCBI Introduces Images, a Database of More than 2.5 Million Images in Biomedical Literature
(October 2010)

Google Books Scanned More than 15 Million Books in 6 Years
(October 14, 2010)

The Digital Public Library of America
(December 13, 2010)

Scanning Books in Libraries Instead of Making Photocopies
(2011)

British Library App
(January 2011)

Universal Music Group Donates a "Mile of Music" to the Library of Congress
(January 10, 2011)

The Largest Interior Image: The Strahov Monastery Library
(March 29, 2011)

Amazon to Launch Library Lending for eBooks on the Kindle Platform
(April 20, 2011)

The First Large Robotized Library
(May 16, 2011)

"Turn on, Tune in, Drop Out": The New York Public Library Buys the Timothy Leary Papers
(June 2011)

"Physical Archiving is Still an Important Function in the Digital Era."The Internet Archive Builds an Archive of Physical Books
(June 6, 2011)

Michael Hart, Father of eBooks & Founder of Project Gutenberg, Dies
(September 6, 2011)

What Would an Infinite Digital Bookcase Look Like?
(October 18, 2011)

Room to Read Donates its 10,000,000th Book
(October 28, 2011)

Burning of the Library of l'Institut de l'Egypte
(December 17, 2011)

Sheikh Sultan Dr. Al-Qasimi Pledges to Restore the Library of l'Institut de l'Egypte
(December 20, 2011)

After Digitizing Over 20 Million Books Expansion of the Google Books Project Begins to Slow
(March 9, 2012)

Massive Thefts from the Girolamini Library in Naples; Auction Aborted
(April 19, 2012)

Digitizing the Oldest Monastic Library
(May 2012)

Book Mountain + Library Quarter in Spijkenisse, The Netherlands
(October 4, 2012)

Penguin Books Introduces a New eBook Lending Program
(November 19, 2012)

100% of U.S. Public Libraries Now Offer Public Access to the Internet
(December 2012)

With the Decline of Brick & Mortar Bookstores Public Libraries are Becoming More Commercial
(December 27, 2012)

The Secret Race to Save Manuscripts in Timbuktu and Djenne
(December 27, 2012)

"Libraries Have Shifted from Warehouses of Books & Materials to Become Participatory Sites of Culture and Learning"
(December 28, 2012)

"Born Digital: Guidance for Donors, Dealers, and Archival Repositories"
(January 2013)

The Library of Congress Has Archived 170 Billion Tweets
(January 4, 2013)

The Bexar County, Texas BiblioTech: a Library Devoid of Physical Books
(January 14, 2013)

The Pew Internet Report on Library Services in the Digital Age
(January 22, 2013)

Part of Library of the Ahmed Baba Institute in Timbuktu is Burned
(January 28 – January 30, 2013)

The Historic Vatican Library to be Digitized in 2.8 Petabytes
(March 7, 2013)

The Digital Public Library of America is Launched
(April 18, 2013)

How the "The Brazen Bibliophiles of Tumbuktu" Saved Manuscripts from Terrorists
(April 25, 2013)