Special Collections

This week I had the opportunity to visit the Special Collections in the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University. It was a truly amazing chance to see many pieces of ancient and extremely valuable literature from all around the world. It was also fascinating to hear about how the methods of recording and publishing have changed over the centuries. I was able to see a wide variety of examples of the different techniques  that were used such as carvings in clay and turtle shells, meticulous recording by hand on papyrus and vellum and finally the type of Guttenberg's modern printing press on paper. 

One of the things that left a huge impression on me was how much time and energy individuals placed into recording things that they believed to be of great importance. Their entire life's work could often be viewed as a few pages in a book. These men and women, primarily in monasteries and convents, poured countless hours into making a perfect copy and record of religious writings so that they could be preserved for future generations. But they did not just stop with the flawless writing. They adorned these texts with beautiful adornments, illustrations, and borders. This elaborate artwork added to the text showed just how much value these texts possessed and how much respect they showed it.

Seeing the herculean effort that was put into recording this religious literature made me realize how much I take the books I have for granted. As a student, I flip through the pages of various books everyday without giving a second thought to how amazing it is that I have all this literature at my disposal. More importantly, as I study my scriptures every night I unfortunately rarely think of the immense sacrifices many people made so that I could hold that book in my hands. People through the centuries have endured countless trials and many even gave their lives to preserve the word of God for future generations. Because of their sacrifice I am able to profit and learn from these amazing works of literature. It also reminded me of the sacrifice that Joseph Smith made to bring another piece of ancient literature containing the words of God into the hands of people all over the world. Though he was recording revelations through a scribe on paper instead of on a turtle shell, publishing these revelations was a huge part of his life's work and he made enormous sacrifices to have it published. My visit to the special collections heightened my gratitude for the efforts that people around the world have made to conserve important pieces of literature and made me realize just how blessed I am to have access to them today.