Contents

1. Setting
2. Map
3. The Scroll Banks
4. Print Culture
5. Appendices

Setting

The city of Illa~Lali~Barios is a metropolis of roughly 5 million people, and serves as an economic and cultural, but not political, capital for its region of the world. History in this world goes back about 4000 years, with cultural memory and physical presence stretching almost 10,000 years before the current era. Relatively ethnically and culturally homogenous, the region has a climate somewhat similar to Central America. The contemporary state of technical development is similar to 1960s United Sates. A second wave of industrialization is in full swing, and most of the culture is in a "high modernist" period, including new abstractions in art and literature partly driven by techinal innovation. Automobiles have been around for about 50 years, and roads and highways have fully replaced clay brick and dirt paths.

However, there are no personal computers, and a form of scroll-based typewriters and linotype like presses are the current mode of written word production. These print technologies are also relatively new, and most information is still in older, block printing and manuscript forms. There is relatively little mass media outside radio, which has in the last decades come to dominate the mass culture and political discourse. The current political and economic situation is stable, and has been so for several generations. The city's position at the mouth of the river Ithballios on Lake Denwar has long made it an important trading point and crossroads. Its role as a central gathering point for several nearby regions, with varying subcutlures and geographies, have long made the city an important hub for information and cultural transmission. As the modern era accellerates the city's role as a repostity of knowledge and its unique network of Scroll Banks have made it even more wealthy and powerful, attracting new people and further accelerating its transiton into a multi-cultural metropolis at the lead of the world's knowledge economy.

Map

The Scroll Banks

Print Culture

Scrolls as a Medium

The term "scroll" as used in the official registered title Scroll Bank, refers to a specific form of rolled linen paper. This linen originally served as a wearable fabic, but around 2,000 years ago, scribes in a far away nation discovered that they could turn linen rags into paper. This linen paper was cut into strips which were then rolled around two ivory sticks attached to each end with a marrow paste. The give and softness of this paper type made it ideal for rolling and unrolling without damaging the paper. The durability also made it an appealing archival medium. Marks were applied originally with a greased charcoal, but soon inks made from plant extracts became common. These ink and linen scrolls quickly came replace the clay tablets which had served as the primary medium of writing since the dawn of history. The loamy alluvial shoreline in the region of Illa~Lali~Barios became the main source of flax for the entire continent. This lead to a lower cost for literacy and a high value on the material culture surrounding these scrolls.

Over time this local print and archival culture became more formalized and scrolls began to be standardized into different varieties with specfic applications by convention. For example, "small day scrolls" were never longer than 6 foot (the hieght of a tall man). They were only to be used for business and practical uses, or musical scores, never for anything literary or meant to last. The width of scrolls also became standarized at 7 inches across. And about 1,000 years into the evolution of the medium a maximum length was agreed to by the guild of paper makers, to put an end to an escalating rivalry between wealthy patrons to own the biggest continuous scroll. It was capped at roughly 100 meters, thought to be enough space to hold any "reasonable and readable" collection of writings.

About 500 years ago inventors in another nation began to develop a system for printing, rather than hand writing a scroll. It consisted of a roller that the operator moved one "page" at time with a pedal. The operater then filled in a grid with block letters. Once all the text is in place, the operator used a lever to lower the grid into a pan of ink under the tray (essentially turing it upside down), and then another lever to press it against the current scroll. This technology was embraced for some purposes but not others. It also led to the development of chemical inks derived from mineral pigments suspened in a viscous medium. Although this lowered the cost of publishing, it also had some serious shortcomings, and was culturally rejected for many purposes. It remained limited to mass production of government decrees, news and low culture fiction, such as romances and heroic epics for about 100 years, at which time a new format became popular: the card. Cards were made of linen paper rectangles, stacked and glued together, then treated with starch. This made a linen cardboard that was ideally sized and suited for printing by machine. Additionally the type sets and inks continued to advance, making printing clearer and allowing more expressive page and type work. These things came together in this new card format. Printed stacks of cards, sold with tied with string or in a box, soon became a format that rivaled the traditional scroll.

About 100 years ago a device very similr to an analog typewriter was invented, and largely sold to businesses, students and hobbyist. This was soon followed by a linotype device for commercial printing. These, and their subsequent improved versions, had far more impact on the print production and collections of the city than the intiial block printer systems. As of the last few decades almost no new scrolls are produced by caligraphy, and no cards are created or sold which are not the product of mass lithography or photocopier like systems. However, the value and prestige placed on the older formats and media remains high. The highest and most sacred forms of print and written material culture still use hand written scrolls in the traditional forms. And most people regard the linen scroll as the perfected form of media, and subsequent innovations as compromises for the sake of cost and scale.

The Anthropology of Scroll Banks

origins and early role as private or collective archives

growing roles during development of the city, increasing econiomic roles

current social and political fuctions (basically they are library+museum+social club+temple+university+bank)

owenersip models/types of archives

buildings and properties, role in the fabic/geography of the city

Appendices

Software Acknowledgments

SVG zoom capabilities provided by the svg-pan-zoom library © 2009-2010 Andrea Leofreddi. All other code © 2018 Imaginary Cartography.