The Ottoman Empire largely eschewed print altogether. The unhappy Venetian who presented to the Sublime Porte the first printed copy of the Qur’an was condemned for blasphemy. China, despite remarkable early experiments with woodblock printing, did not embrace metal type, for principally technical reasons. … But without the multiplying capacities of print, book collecting outside of Europe and European colonies remained largely an elite privilege.

Andrew Pettegree, Arthur der Weduwen, The Library- A Fragile Hist…, loc. 27