IT'S MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE INTERNET,
TELEVISION, AND RADIO,
AND IT'S MORE THAN 500 YEARS OLD.
MARK, I'M GONNA BEGIN WITH A SENTENCE THAT I RARELY SAY:
I'M STANDING NEXT TO THE GUTENBERG BIBLE.
YES, INDEED, YOU ARE.
THIS IS ARGUABLY ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT BOOKS
IN THE HISTORY OF THE PRINTED BOOK.
CERTAINLY THE FIRST BOOK PRINTED IN WESTERN EUROPE
USING MOVEABLE METAL TYPE.
WHY IT WAS MEANINGFUL THAT THIS WAS PRINTED
WITH MOVEABLE METAL TYPE?
PRIOR TO GUTENBERG'S PRINTING THIS BIBLE,
WHICH WAS DONE IN 1454,
ANY KIND OF COMMUNICATION WOULD HAVE TO BE DONE BY HAND,
BY MANUSCRIPT.
SO IF YOU HAD A BIBLE AND I WANTED A COPY OF THE BIBLE,
WE WOULD HAVE TO HAVE SOMEBODY HAND-COPY YOUR BIBLE.
AT THE END OF ABOUT TWO YEARS' WORTH OF WORK,
YOU WOULD THEN HAVE TWO BIBLES.
AND OF COURSE, NOT ONLY DOES IT
ALLOW THE CREATION OF A BOOK LIKE THIS,
BUT IT REALLY WAS THE INTRODUCTION OF MASS MEDIA.
YES, ONE OF THE REASONS THAT GUTENBERG IS OFTEN REFERRED TO
AS THE MAN OF THE MILLENNIUM FROM THE LAST MILLENNIUM
IS THAT THE REPEATABILITY AND THE MULTIPLES
THAT COME OUT OF PRINTING HAS A DRAMATIC IMPACT ON EUROPE,
PROBABLY MORE SO THAN COMPUTERS HAVE HAD ON OUR OWN GENERATION,
I WOULD SAY.
"PRICELESS" IS PERHAPS
NOT AN INAPPROPRIATE WORD TO DESCRIBE A GUTENBERG BIBLE.
I GOT TO SAY, IT'S AMAZING THAT WE'RE JUST STANDING HERE
AT A TABLE WITH THE GUTENBERG BIBLE.
JUST IN MY EXPERIENCE, I CAN REMEMBER
DOING COLLEGE ESSAYS WITH NO INTERNET.
SO IN MY LITTLE MYOPIC WORLD,
THE INTERNET IS A HUGE INNOVATION.
BUT THIS INNOVATION DWARFS THAT INNOVATION.
I THINK WE HAVE A SENSE OF WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT
IN TERMS OF REVOLUTION
WHEN WE LOOK AT WHAT COMPUTERS MEAN IN OUR LIVES.
YOU HAVE TO REMEMBER THAT PRIOR TO GUTENBERG,
ESPECIALLY WITH LARGE TEXTS--
COPIES OF HOMER, FOR EXAMPLE, THE ILIAD--
YOU WOULD MOST LIKELY TRAVEL TO READ THAT TEXT.
AMAZING.
BY 50 YEARS AFTER THIS BOOK IS PRINTED,
THE WORLD HAS BEEN COMPLETELY CHANGED.
THERE ARE MILLIONS--
LITERALLY MILLIONS OF PRINTED BOOKS
IN WESTERN EUROPE, ALL PROMPTED
BY GUTENBERG'S EFFORT TO CREATE A MANUSCRIPT
BY USING PRINT WITH MOVEABLE TYPE.
AND THIS IS THE ACTUAL BOOK THAT CAME OFF HIS PRESS.
IT'S AN EXTRAORDINARY HONOR TO LOOK AT SOMETHING
THAT SPARKS A REVOLUTION OF THIS CALIBER.
REMARKABLE. ALL RIGHT. THANK YOU, SIR.
THE GUTENBERG BIBLE: HERE IT IS.
I'M MARK DIMUNATION,
CHIEF OF THE RARE BOOK AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS DIVISION
HERE AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.