On the context of these ancient libraries: - everything was hand written / copied - there was no punctuation, no real word spacing - information was primarily transferred via oration and this written form was a new fangled technology :) - there were multiple differing character sets in use, sometimes even for the same language. Also some texts were written right left, or left to right, or even alternating back and forth (boustrophedon)

The history of the english alphabet (with miniscules and majiscules) is a rather interesting story, and if this sort of history interests you I recommend The 26 Letters by Ogg.