世界进入中世纪以后,拜占廷帝国皇家图书馆曾有一度繁荣。到了公元8世纪,随着中国造纸术的传入,阿拉伯文化进入繁荣昌盛时期,那里的图书馆分布广泛,仅巴格达城就有30 多所。而在欧洲,公元476年罗马帝国灭亡之后,教会的神权统治,严酷的封建等级制度,使学术思想窒息,文化萎缩,近千年间图书馆处于衰落状态。 After the world entered the Middle Ages, the Byzantine Empire Royal Library once flourished. By the 8th century AD, with the introduction of Chinese papermaking, the Arab culture entered a prosperous period, where libraries were widely distributed, with more than 30 in Baghdad alone. In Europe, after the demise of the Roman Empire in 476 AD, the church’s theocratic rule and harsh feudal hierarchy stifled its academic thinking and its culture was shrinking. In the last millennium, the library was in a state of decline.