ABSTRACT
The dedication of a new public library in San Francisco provided a unique occasion to witness historical forces of literacy in action. The historical study of literacy was conducted in earnest in a time after World War II when the overall tone of both arts and humanities scholarship rejected the idea that one culture could truly and objectively understand another. Art historian E. H. Gombrich, who conducted landmark studies of the psychology of pictorial representations, vehemently dismissed the idea that 'one age or culture can never truly understand another, or is even obliged to try'. French literacy historian Henri-Jean Martin begins his book, The History and Power of Writing, by commenting on the vexing complexity of any study of literacy: 'All history is first chronology'. Literacy in contemporary contexts can only benefit from comparisons to historical transitions of similar magnitude, such as the transition between oral and written modes.
