Though a library such as that of Ashurbanipal was the visible expression of earthly power, no single person, however royal, could hope to read through it all. To read every book and to digest all the information, the king recruited other eyes and other hands to scan the tablets and summarize their findings, so that in reading these digests he might be able to boast that he was familiar with the library’s entire contents. Scholars extracted the meat from the texts and then, “like pelicans,” regurgitated it for the benefit of others.
The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel
Bewildered Creatures 