AGOSTINO RAMELLI'S 1588 LIBRARY BOOK WHEEL

One of the defining features of Kindles and iPads and their fellow e-readers is their ability to store tons of books in the same place, at the same time. Which means that, thanks to these quintessentially twenty-first-century technologies, we are newly encouraged to consume our books not as long meals, but as occasional snacks: a few nibbles of Moby-Dick here, a few bites of Bossypants there. Under e-readers' influence, the linear project of book-reading -- from page 1 to page 501, sequentially -- has shifted to something much more chaotic, much more casual, much more accommodating to whimsy and whim.

Literary restlessness, though, dates back much further than the 21st century. It dates back, at least, to the 16th -- to the Italian engineer Agostino Ramelli, and to his desire for a reading interface that would allow for book-borne snacking. Ramelli, who spent his professional career creating siege machinery for the military, wanted to develop a device that would allow a reader to reference multiple books at (pretty much) the same time -- a desire made especially practical given how large and heavy books were back then.

In his own book, published in 1588 and modestly titled The Various and Ingenious Machines of Captain Agostino Ramelli, the designer outlined his vision for a wheel-o-books that would employ the logic of other types of wheel (water, Ferris, "Price is Right", etc.) to rotate books clockwork-style before a stationary user. Ramelli planned to use epicyclic gearing -- a system that had at that point been used only in astronomical clocks -- to ensure that the shelves bearing the wheel's books (more than a dozen of them) would remain at the same angle no matter the wheel's position. The seated reader could then employ either hand or foot controls to move the desired book pretty much into her (or, much more likely, his) lap.

To read the complete article, see: Behold, the Kindle of the 16th Century (www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/02/behold-the-kindle
-of-the-16th-century/273577/#.US8TN66kPb8.google_plusone_share)

Wayne Homren, Editor

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web