At what point in history did people begin to use parchment as a means
of writing and recording information?

Hello rtl39-ga,

According to Wikipedia and the Roman historian Varro, parchment was
invented in between 263 to 160 BC under Eumenes of Pergamum's Rule.
(They're not sure if it was Eumenes I or Eumenes II -  hence the large
time frame.) It was invented as a substitute for papyrus which was not
being imported from Alexandria, which was its only source at that
time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parchment


If this answer requires further explanation, please request
clarification before rating it, and I'll be happy to look into this
further.

Nenna-GA
Google Answers Researcher

Is this satisfactory:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parchment

rtl139,
In case you are wondering, I am confident that Nenna-ga was
researching and typing  her answer while I posted my comment, that is,
that she did NOT take the wikipedia link from my comment. 
Simultaneous postings happen fairly often, especially on questions
that have just been posted.
Of course I think Nenna's answer is worth five stars. :)
Myoarin

Thank you myoarin-ga,

You're correct, it can get hard not to repeat a good source of
information when the commentors come in and "answer" a question before
a researcher has a chance to look at it (8 minutes after it was
posted). However, as you can see, we were 10 minutes apart on this one
between the comment and the official answer.

Nenna-GA