Point of Purchase: Bookshops and Stationers as Agents of Change

Rebecca T.

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Point of Purchase: Bookshops and Stationers as Agents of Change

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It was not so much the press itself, but the uses to which the press was put that revolutionized the exchange of ideas in early modern Europe and on into the present. In order to change an entire cultural consciousness, it took not only the invention of a useful tool, but also the motivation and ingenuity to use such a tool towards its greatest capacity. Had the invention of the printing press been sufficiently controlled, it could have simply taken the place of scribes without affecting the state of early modern learning. It was the ingenuity of publishers and booksellers that utilized the new technology to its greatest capacity for change.

Perhaps the most obvious way that the book trade changed European culture was through its creation of new social spaces.
More important than the simple possibilities of ego inflation, however, the new book traders created greater intellectual possibilities in their society.
The lists and systems they created not only had a long-term effect on the way that we conceive of information systems.
Though all of the changes created by Stationers in early modern Europe were made possible through their use of the printing press.

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[...] Point of Purchase: Bookshops and Stationers as Agents of Change It was not so much the press itself, but the uses to which the press was put that revolutionized the exchange of ideas in early modern Europe and on into the present. In order to change an entire cultural consciousness, it took not only the invention of a useful tool, but also the motivation and ingenuity to use such a tool towards its greatest capacity. Had the invention of the printing press been sufficiently controlled, it could have simply taken the place of scribes without affecting the state of early modern learning. [...]

[...] Likewise, by setting up fixed locations and stocking books in a shop or booth as opposed to distributing via traveling salesmen or preserving in a library, the new possibilities of cross-reference and the creation of personal libraries became possible. Even within a single printing firm sheer variety of activities, both intellectual and practical is breathtaking.”[9] With such quantities and varieties of product, it was now up to the booksellers to arrange the intellectual and creative output of the time. The use of alphabetical order, a rarity in the Middle Ages, came from the need to appeal to wide audience and to standardize systems of information within the industry. [...]

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