In the earliest times, there was no distinction between a record room (or archive) and a library, and in this sense, libraries can be said to have existed for almost as long as records have been kept. However, the very earliest libraries are believed to have been built around five thousand years ago, with the first human efforts to organize collections of documents. These took the form of clay tablets in cuneiform script about an inch thick, in various shapes and sizes. It can be considered t...
