The original “too many tabs open.” Located in Biblioteca Palafoxiana in Puebla, Mexico, the first public library in the Americas, this 300-year-old library tool that allows you to have 7 books open at the same time.
Image source: Imgur
In the age of the Internet and mobile browsers, we take it for granted that we can open a new tab any time if we want to look for new information but are still willing to get back to the previous one. In fact, we are so used to being able to open just any number of tabs and windows on our devices that we tend to forget how different life was in the past in terms of how information was obtained.
300 years ago, the average citizen mostly only learnt about news and “the things in life” orally, from others – in fact, just two centuries ago only a small elite (about 12%) of the world population had the ability to read and write. It was only during the the 19th century global literacy more than doubled. So INFORMATION, in capital letters, was only available to a select few – the wealthy and literate. But even for them, obtaining that information was somewhat a difficult job. Especially if we consider the size of the books published in those days.
Agostino Ramelli (1531-ca. 1610), a next generation Leonardo who, like Leonardo, made his living as a military engineer, produced invention upon invention for the benefit of someone or other, saw the need for the management of such armloads of books, that may only be shifted one at a time, due to weight. So he came up with an amazing “book wheel” allowing researchers to keep several books open simultaneously. Here’s how it worked:
Fast forward to a century later, when Ramelli’s went into overdrive. It was then that the Bishop of Puebla, Juan de Palafox y Mendoza (1600-1659), established the first public library in the Americas (according to some scholars), the Biblioteca Palafoxiana. He was a lover of books and wished to share the joy of reading with others.
“He who succeeds without books,” said Palafox y Mendoza, “is in an inconsolable darkness, on a mountain without company, on a path without a crosier, in darkness without a guide.”
No bishop would be without a crosier. Nor without a bookwheel to roll you through the darkness. So Mexico ordered the delivery of a brand new reading wheel – the one depicted here.
The bookwheel is the equivalent of keeping seven windows open on your computer at the same time, though even more manoeuvrable as each book can contain thousands of pages. According to the Carmelite Library, “the windows are kept open with the aid of a scrollwheel no longer than your fingernail, which is the spine bump in the back of your mouse. The scrollwheel is. You dance with this mouse night and day. Even the folios known to Agostino Ramelli, or his imitator the Palafoxiana bookwheeler, are searchable in digital that takes only the whorls at the tip of the index finger to display. Ramelli’s profuse inventions image with resolution on a screen the width from thumb to elbow.”
Over time, the appearance of “the handbook” dispensed the need for such machinery, so you won’t find the bookwheel in any trade catalogues of library furniture. But you can still find it in this amazing library in Mexico.
Sources: 1, 2, 3