The Quasi-Forgotten Software Scribe A scribe is a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of automatic printing. Remember Bob Cratchit in A Christmas Carol, toiling away on the books at the august firm of Scrooge and Marley, finger-less gloves on his hands to keep them from freezing between entries? Watching it will start us to thinking about old Bob and all the other “clarks” who kept the records for so many enterprises over the centuries.