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One of the first ‘books’ can be seen in the creation of ancient scrolls, going as far back as the 4th millennium BCE.
These rolled up manuscripts were often made using a Papyrus plant and when unraveled, could be between 14 to 52 feet wide.

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More similar to the style of books we know today, the Romans created some of the first codices from as early as the 1st century CE. The codex was more durable and compact than a scroll as it was made with parchment paper and bound with wooden covers.
As it was easy to carry, this style of book became popular with the rise of Christianity – perfect for bringing your biblical texts on-the-go.

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the use of block printing on paper, began in Tang Dynasty China around 700 CE, though it wouldn’t arrive in Europe for nearly 800 years.

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The first known examples of text printed on paper are tiny, 2.5-inch-wide scrolls of Buddhist prayers commissioned by Japan’s Empress Shōtoku in 764 CE.

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The earliest example of a dated, printed book is a Buddhist text called the Diamond Sutra (868 CE).

Woodblock printing was a meticulous process that involved carving an entire page of text onto a wooden block, then inking and pressing the block to print a page.

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Printing had gone mainstream, all thanks to the invention of the first recorded printing press in 1439 CE by Johannes Gutenberg.
This mechanical device allowed for the printing of books, newspapers, and pamphlets to be brought to the masses.

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Though Gutenberg probably printed other, earlier materials, it was the Bible he printed in 1455 that brought him renown. In his small print shop in his hometown of Mainz, Germany, Gutenberg used his movable type press to print 180 copies of the Bible, 135 on paper and 45 on vellum.

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The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center estimates that before the invention of the printing press, the total number of books in all of Europe was around 30,000. By 1500 CE, the book was thriving as an industrial object, and the number of books in Europe had grown to as many as 10 to 12 million.

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Another ‘first’ for books was the first dictionary, created in 1582 CE by Richard Mulcaster.
The Oxford dictionary today has over 273,000 words in alphabetical order, but Mulcaster’s “Elementarie” put together 8,000 words in a non-alphabetical list.

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Because of the high value placed on human knowledge during the Renaissance, libraries flourished during this time period. As they had been in ancient Egypt, libraries were once again a way of displaying national power and wealth.

The German State Library in Berlin was founded in 1661, and other European centers soon followed, such as the National Library of Spain in Madrid in 1711 and the British Library (the world’s largest) in London in 1759.

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The United Kingdom’s Public Libraries Act of 1850 fostered the development of free, public lending libraries. After the American Civil War, public libraries flourished in the newly reunified United States, helped by fundraising and lobbying by women’s clubs.

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In 1935 CE, for only six pence each (~ 8 cents USD), you could pick up one of Penguin Books first glued paperbacks. The development of glued books said “so long” to sewing as this method was quicker and cheaper.

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Science-fiction writer Frederik Pohl imagined a world with “machines which would produce a book to your order, anywhere in the world,” and he might not have anticipated that this would become a reality only a few years later.

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It was not only print-on-demand that transformed the future of books but the first digitization of texts by Project Gutenberg in 1971 CE brought reading into the internet era.

This project continues to share over 60,000 eBooks today and many other online reading resources have developed since to keep up with the digital age.

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One of the most used online reading resources today is Google Books, which is almost as old as Google itself.

In 1996, Google co-founders supported the Stanford Digital Library Technologies Project and by 2002, Google Books was officially launched as a secret project to start digitizing books all over the world.