An approximate timeline of the book’s technologies and of technologies that have shaped the book
| BCE | |
| 3500: | Clay bullae (Sumer) |
| 2800: | Clay tablet with cuneiform writing (Mesopotamia) |
| 2600: | Papyrus with hieroglyphic writing (Egypt) |
| 2500: | Oldest known khipu (Peru). Most date from the fifteenth century |
| 2500: | Writing on leather (Egypt) |
| 2300: | Inanna poems (Enheduanna) |
| 2100: | Gilgamesh |
| 1900: | Prisse Papyrus, the oldest written papyrus scroll |
| 1600: | Bamboo scroll/jiance (China) |
| 1600: | Parchment |
| 1500: | Phoenician alphabet (consonants only) |
| 1400: | Oracle inscriptions in animal bones and shells (China) |
| 1300: | Wax tablet |
| 700: | Earliest silk documents (China) |
| 668–612: | King Ashurbanipal’s library |
| 300: | Library of Alexandria |
| 200: | Palm leaf sutra/pothī (India and Sri Lanka) |
| 200: | Introduction of punctuation by Aristophanes (Rome) |
| 200–200 CE: | Composition of Hebrew Torah |
| 197: | Library of Pergamum (Turkey) |
| 170: | Perfection of parchment production in Pergamon (Turkey) |
| 100: | Hemp paper (China) |
| 55: | Roman parchment notebooks/pugillares membranae |
| 39: | First public library in Rome |
| CE | |
| 65–150: | Composition of New Testament |
| 105: | Invention of paper in China attributed to Cai Lun |
| 150: | Codex |
| 400–1300: | Preservation and reproduction of Greek writings in Byzantium, Islam, and the Christian world (fuels Renaissance) |
| 600–1000: | Flourishing of intellectual arts and book production in Islam |
| 600–1200: | Monastic manuscript production |
| 675: | Word separation (Ireland) |
| 700: | Accordion books (China) |
| 750: | Paper mill at Samarkand |
| 859: | Founding of Khizanat al-Qarawiyyin, library, mosque, and university, by Fatima Al-Fihiri. Considered the world’s oldest continually operating library |
| 868: | Woodblock printing (China, Diamond Sutra) |
| 1041: | Wood and clay movable type in China (Bí Sheng) |
| 1050: | The Dresden Codex, oldest surviving book printed in the Americas (Yucatan) |
| 1078: | First European paper mill (Sativa, Spain) |
| 1377: | Jikji printed from copper type (Korea) |
| 1420: | Block-books (Europe) |
| 1437: | Peepshow box (Leon Battista Alberti) |
| 1450: | Printing press, metal type, and oil-based ink (Johannes Gutenberg) |
| 1450–1501: | Incunable period in Europe |
| 1456: | Gutenberg Bible |
| 1522: | Wittenberg Bible |
| 1501: | Aldine editions |
| 1709: | Statute of Anne establishes copyright (England) |
| 1725: | Stereotyping (William Ged) |
| 1751: | Encyclopédie (Denis Diderot) |
| 1765: | Metamorphosis books/harlequinades (Robert Sayer) |
| 1774: | Donaldson v. Beckett strikes down perpetual copyright (England) |
| 1788: | Illuminated printing (William Blake) |
| 1790: | First U.S. Federal Copyright Act |
| 1798: | Lithography (Alois Senefelder) |
| 1798: | Papermaking machine, continuous roll paper (patented by Nicolas Robert) |
| 1800: | Cast iron printing press (Charles Stanhope) |
| 1807: | Fourdrinier papermaking machine (John Gamble, Henry and Sealy Fourdrinier) |
| 1810: | Steam-powered printing press (Frederich König) |
| 1816: | Photography (Nicéphore Niépce) |
| 1830: | Flatbed cylinder press (Frederich König) |
| 1838: | Typecasting machine (David Bruce) |
| 1833: | Photographic print from negative (William Henry Fox Talbot) |
| 1868: | Kineograph/flip-book (John Barnes Linnett) |
| 1878: | Photogravure (Karel Válclav Klič) |
| 1878: | Foil cylinder recording (Thomas Edison) |
| 1879: | Stitched-binding machine (David M. Smyth) |
| 1884: | Mimeograph (Thomas Edison and Albert Blake Dick) |
| 1886: | Linotype (Ottmar Mergenthaler) |
| 1886: | Berne Convention on Copyright |
| 1894: | Mutoscope (Herman Casler) |
| 1896: | Monotype (Tolbert Lanston) |
| 1897: | Un coup de Dés jamais n’abolira le Hasard (Stéphane Mallarmé) |
| 1903: | Lithographic offset press (Ira Rubel) |
| 1912: | Intertype |
| 1913: | La Prose du Transsibérien et de la Petite Jehanne de France (Blaise Cendrars and Sonia Delaunay) |
| 1919: | Unhappy Readymade (Marcel Duchamp) |
| 1930: | Readies (Bob Brown) |
| 1932: | Audiobooks on LP (The Talking Book) |
| 1938: | Xerography (Chester Carlson) |
| 1945: | Memex (Vannevar Bush) |
| 1949: | El libro mecánico (Ángela Ruiz Robles) |
| 1950: | Intertype Fotosetter photocompositing machine |
| 1951: | Inkjet printer (Siemens) |
| 1955: | Universal Copyright Convention |
| 1959: | Xerox 914 commercial photocopier |
| 1961: | Literaturwurst (Dieter Roth) |
| 1961: | Composition No. 1 (Marc Saporta) |
| 1961: | Cent mille milliards de poèmes (Raymond Queneau) |
| 1962: | Enciclopedia Mecánica (Ángela Ruiz Robles) |
| 1963: | Twentysix Gasoline Stations (Ed Ruscha) |
| 1967: | Hypertext (Ted Nelson and Andries van Dam) |
| 1967: | The Big Book (Alison Knowles) |
| 1967: | Sweethearts (Emmett Williams) |
| 1967: | ISBN introduced in United States |
| 1971: | Project Gutenberg (Michael S. Hart) |
| 1972: | Dynabook (Alan Kay) |
| 1975: | “The New Art of Making Books” (Ulises Carrión) |
| 1975: | Cover to Cover (Michael Snow) |
| 1977: | ABC—We Print Anything—In the Cards (Carolee Schneeman) |
| 1984: | Digital Domesday Project |
| 1985: | CD-ROM introduced |
| 1986: | Franklin Spelling Ace |
| 1987: | Storyspace, Eastgate Systems (Jay David Bolter, Michael Joyce, and John B. Smith) |
| 1992: | Voyager Expanded Books |
| 1992: | Sony Data Discman |
| 1992: | Incipit e-reader (Franco Crugnola Varese and Isabella Rigamonti) |
| 1994: | lineament (Ann Hamilton) |
| 1994: | A Passage (Buzz Spector) |
| 1996: | The Internet Archive (Brewster Kahle) |
| 1997: | ePaper/E Ink Corporation (Joseph Jacobson) |
| 2000: | The first mass-market e-book for encrypted download (Stephen King’s novella Riding the Bullet [Simon and Schuster]) |
| 2000: | Tobacco Project (Xu Bing) |
| 2003: | First keitai shousetsu, or cell phone novel (Deep Love, by Yoshi) |
| 2004: | Sony Librie e-reader |
| 2004: | Google Print announced |
| 2006: | Espresso Book Machine |
| 2006: | Sony Reader |
| 1006: | Danger Book: Suicide Fireworks (Cai Guo-Qiang) |
| 2007: | Apple iPhone |
| 2007: | Amazon Kindle |
| 2009: | Barnes and Noble Nook |
| 2010: | Apple iPad |
| 2011: | The Physical Archive of the Internet Archive |
| 2013: | Digital Public Library of America |