Coptic manuscript on vellum/parchment, 10th century AD, with reed pen.

Earthenware jar, before 68 AD, to store scrolls, as found in desert caves of Qumran (approximate 40 x 20 cm).

Cuneiform clay tablet from Mesopotamia in the collection of Penn University, USA.

Storage of scrolls in the ‘Great Library of Alexandria’ as represented in the movie ‘Alexander’ by Oliver Stone.
Detail of writing with reed pen in fresco by Michelangelo in the Sistina Chapel in the Vatican Rome, painted in 1511-12.
Jean Miėllot translator and writer in the service of Burgundy rulers painted by Jan Tavernier around 1456.
Detail of a painting of Erasmus while writing by Hans Holbein the Younger 1523.
Detail of painting ‘The reading lesson’ by Gerard Terborch (1617-1681): from the page to the mouth and mother’s attentive ear ...
Detail of Gerrit Dou’s painting of an ‘Old woman reading’, circa 1630: silent reading directly from the page to the mind.
Fresco fragment imagining the young Cicero (106-43 BC) reading (in amodern format book), by Vincenzo Foppa, circa 1464 (Palazzo Mediceo, Milano).
Torah scroll with the first five books of Moses (Pentateuch); written on sheepskin; it has 245 columns each with 42 lines.
Chained books as used in cloister libraries, Austria Germany 14/15th century Schoyen collection Norway.
Boy reading ‘Spider man’ comic on divan, taken from American family picture web site, Christmas 2003.
Laymen’s Picture Bible of the Late Middle Ages, made in Germany.
Hofbibliothek in Vienna with its huge hall and balconies full of books; built by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach in 1722-26.
Modern sculpture: ‘The Student’ by Tom Bass in front of University of Sydney Library.
Wooden composing stick and (recast) of 15th century German type (Frakturschrift) from the time of Maximilian I.
Modern typesetting with cast type, spacers and matrixes pressed inside a galley.
19th century Liberty printing press by Frederick Otto Degener from New York, with foot paddle and counterweight.
Keyboard of mechanical typewriter with pistons and a computer keyboard with electrical switches.
‘Long Room’ of the library of Trinity College, Dublin, built in 1732 with alphabetical ordered open access shelves, with approx. 200.000 books.
Modern mechanical compact mobile shelving system: high density storage multiplying the number of books in one space, but no open access.
“One Laptop per Child”: for the world’s poorest children living in its most remote environments, planned distribution 2007.
‘Electronic Paper Displays’ are paper-like high contrast, low energy, electronic foils for displaying updatable information.
‘Dataview’: head-mounted device for displaying data on monocle and allowing sound reproduction and input, developed for Digilens Inc.
Diagrams of ‘Peer to Peer’ decentralized computer networks for exchanging of (personal) data, like the ‘Gnutella’ system.
‘Bookeye’ digital scanner captures books, papers, magazines and 3-D objects, has auto-focus and book-fold correction.
Flexible plastic sheet with organic diodes, can be placed against an object to scan it, from Tokyo University Quantum-Phase Electronics Centre.
Direct face to face meeting opportunities in open stack library system will be lost in the world of remote data communication.
Digital Petabyte storage (1000 Terra byte) now, with Zetta byte (1 million terra bytes) and bigger systems to come.