He has been called "the poet laureate of technology" and a writer who is "erudite, witty, thoughtful, and accessible." Now Henry Petroski turns to the subject of books and bookshelves, and wonders whether it was inevitable that books would come to be arranged vertically as they are today on horizontal shelves. As we learn how the ancient scroll became the codex became the volume we are used to, we explore the ways in which the housing of books evolved. Petroski takes us into the pre-Gutenberg world, where books were so scarce they were chained to lecterns for security. He explains how the printing press not only changes the way books were made and shelved, but also increased their availability and transformed book readers into books owners and collectors. He shows us that for a time books were shelved with their spinesin, and it was not until after the arrival of the modern bookcase that she spines facedout. In delightful digressions, Petroski lets Seneca have his say on "the evils of book collecting"; examines the famed collection of Samuel Pepys (only three thousand titles: old discarded to make room for new); and discusses bookselling, book buying, and book collecting through the centuries. Richly illustrated and wonderfully written, this is the ultimate book on the book: how it came to be and how we have come to keep it.

Investigates the development of the bookshelf and discusses the ways in which it is intertwined with the creation of the book.

From the author of the highly praised The Pencil and The Evolution of Useful Things comes another captivating history of the seemingly mundane: the book and its storage. Most of us take for granted that our books are vertical on our shelves with the spines facing out, but Henry Petroski, inveterately curious engineer, didn't.nbsp;nbsp;As a result, readers are guided along the astonishing evolution from papyrus scrolls boxed at Alexandria to upright books shelved at the Library of Congress. Unimpeachably researched, enviably written, and charmed with anecdotes from Seneca to Samuel Pepys to a nineteenth-century bibliophile who had to climb over his books to get into bed, The Book on the Bookshelf is indispensable for anyone who loves books.

History. Language Arts. Technology. Nonfiction. HTML:

From the author of the highly praised The Pencil and The Evolution of Useful Things comes another captivating history of the seemingly mundane: the book and its storage.

Most of us take for granted that our books are vertical on our shelves with the spines facing out, but Henry Petroski, inveterately curious engineer, didn't. As a result, readers are guided along the astonishing evolution from papyrus scrolls boxed at Alexandria to upright books shelved at the Library of Congress.

Petroski takes us into the pre-Gutenberg world, when books were so scarce they were chained to lecterns for security. He explains how the printing press not only changed the way books were made and shelved but also increased their availability and transformed book readers into book owners and collectors.

In delightful digressions, Petroski lets Seneca have his say on "the evils of book collecting;" examines the famed collection of Samuel Pepys and his only three thousand titles—old discarded to make room for new; and discusses bookselling, book buying, and book collecting through the centuries.

This is the ultimate book on the book: how it came to be and how we have come to keep it.

.

This ultimate book on books tells how they came to be and how we keep them, from papyrus scrolls boxed at Alexandria through Gutenberg's era to books shelved upright at the Library of Congress.

"Henry Petroski, "the poet laureate of technology" sets his sights on perhaps the greatest technological advances of the last two thousand years: the making and storing of books -- from papyrus scrolls to precious medieval codices to the book as we know it, from the great library at Alexandria to monastic cells to the Library of Congress." "As writing advanced, and with it broader literacy, the development of the book was seemingly inevitable. And as books became more common, the question of where and how to store them became more pertinent. But how did we come from continuous sheets rolled on spools to the ubiquitous portable item you are holding in your hand? And how did books come to be stored and displayed vertically and spine out on shelves? Henry Petroski answers these and virtually every other question we might have about books as he contemplates the history of the book on the bookshelf with his inimitable subtle analysis and intriguing detail. Book jacket."--BOOK JACKET.

He has been called "the poet laureate of technology" and a writer who is "erudite, witty, thoughtful, and accessible." Now Henry Petroski turns to the subject of books and bookshelves, and wonders whether it was inevitable that books would come to be arranged vertically as they are today on horizontal shelves.

Un paseo por la historia del libro como objeto, como transmisor de conocimiento, como medio de comunicacion y todo su entorno como la iluminacion de las bibliotecas, su evolucion sus modos de transporte, su conservacion y ademas diversos metodos de ordenacion. Una obra para los amantes de los libros.