How The Invention Of Paper Changed The World

[nigelg]

Thought this short overview on the BBC website might be of some interest.

[Orpilorp]

Someone thought paper usage was on the decline? Not where I work. We recently received our semi annual shipment of 52 pallets of plain white photocopy paper (alas! not one sheet of which is fountain pen friendly).

[Sasha Royale]

Stone and clay tablets were durable, but my copy of "War And Peace" would weigh half a ton.

Forget about using it in the lavatory ! Writing on lamb skin is a joy It is soft, but very expensive.

Then, the was the Bubonic Plague, that killed a half of the population of Europe. All that clothing fiber was available for making paper. The first Bibles were likely printed on dead peoples' clothing.

 

Paper was more economical to use in the lavatory. The Roman "spongia" was even cheaper, and SUSTAINABLE.

Edited March 13, 2017 by Sasha Royale

[inkypete]

I was a paper merchant in a previous life (80s) and we were all marched into a crisis session managed by one of the largest paper companies and lectured on how the 'paperless office' was coming and would destroy our industry by the year 2000.

[inkstainedruth]

Interesting article. Thanks for posting the link.

I have a bunch of left-over pages of forms from a scavenger hunt I ran in January. I use them for to-do lists, copying recipes out of cookbooks, and just a couple of days ago made a list of books to look for in the library to research on another scavenger hunt. When the back side of those pages get filled up, they go in a bag to take to the local paper recycling bin.

Plus, I keep thinking of the line from the TV show Babylon 5 which is set a couple of hundred years in the future, IIRC, where Dr. Stephen Franklin (the space station's physician) says something like "Every time I hear about a "paperless" society I have more forms to fill out!"

And, I'd rather hold a book in my hand to read it than stare at a computer screen or the like all day long.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[welch]

I was a paper merchant in a previous life (80s) and we were all marched into a crisis session managed by one of the largest paper companies and lectured on how the 'paperless office' was coming and would destroy our industry by the year 2000.

 

Aha! By 1984 or '85, my division of GE had a unit pushing the "paperless office". We had invented email back in the late '60s, and marketing insisted that "everything" would be electronic. Still waiting.

[Water Ouzel]

 

Aha! By 1984 or '85, my division of GE had a unit pushing the "paperless office". We had invented email back in the late '60s, and marketing insisted that "everything" would be electronic. Still waiting.

 

I spent 35+ years as a technical writer, with the spectre of the paperless office periodically swooping in to, well, whatever it was supposed to do.

 

We finally decided that the paperless office would arrive some time after the paperless bathroom.