The records that are kept about everything that happens in a fort have no medium. There are number of things that could be used as something to write down the records.
Example:
In the ancient world, they used clay tablets to write down the important things of their civilizations. Then there was papyrus, scrolls made out of plant leaves glued together. After the scrolls came the codex, books as we know them today. The pages were made of leather, called vellum. Vellum could be made at the Tanners shop, but then we would probably need a bookbinding shop too. The paper as we know it was invented by the Chinese, when they tired of writing on bamboo, and is made out of pulp wood.
The whole point of having books and scrolls is of course to educate, entertain and keep records of historical events. You WILL need a library if you are going to start having magicwielding dwarves. And then you WILL need books and scrolls.
The educational purpose of literature could also spawn a new way of learning the ways of art, war, architecture and so on and so forth.
(I’ve read a lot of the future plans about Dwarf Fortress, some of the threads that are here at the forum, but it would be ignorant to think this hasn’t already been suggested, but I hope this is a new and fresh point of view
)
[ January 07, 2008: Message edited by: Crafty ]