Ángela Ruiz Robles's mechanical encyclopaedia
Enciclopedia mecánica de Ángela Ruiz Robles
- Date
- 1949 (prototipo 1962) · confidence high
- Place
- Ferrol, A Coruña, Galicia, Spain
- Credited to
- Ángela Ruiz Robles
- Field
- Communication
What it is
The teacher Ángela Ruiz Robles patented in 1949 a “mechanical, electrical and air-pressure procedure for reading books” and in 1962 built a prototype mechanical encyclopaedia: a case with reels of interchangeable sheets for each subject, with light and audio reading planned. She is regarded as a forerunner of the e-book.
The patent is from 1949 (no. 190,698) and the prototype from 1962; it never reached industrial production for lack of support, and its influence on the modern e-book is one of conceptual analogy, not causal.
What it led to
- later recognition as a forerunner of the e-book
- a prototype preserved in the MUNCYT museum in A Coruña
- tributes and studies in the history of digital reading