The Readin In The 1930's

The years following Lissitzky’s Electro-Library inspired inventors to develop machines that embodied the goals behind his credo. In 1930, Rear Admiral Bradley A. Fiske developed a transportable reading machine. Weighing less than four ounces and resembling a lorgnette, the machine was transportable and so was the book. Each strip of paper contained about 25,000 words; thus, an entire book could easily be printed on a few strips (“Reading Machine” 53). Due to the page’s size, the type was microscopic, so the reader would read it through a magnifying class that they would hold up to their nose. After reading a page, the reader did not physically change the strip; rather, using the thumb holding the machine, he turned the screw on the handle, and the page automatically appeared (“Reading Machine” 53). The page design allowed to reduce the cost of an average length book down to only 5 cents and simplified the publishing process

Brown expressed that society was stuck “consult[ing] the book in its original archaic form as the only oracular means [it] know[s] for carrying the word mystically to the eye,” therefore, refusing literature to expand beyond print (28). However, as technology developed, he believed that literature should also, and it would be possible through his machine. Brown envisioned a machine that the reader could carry around like Fiske’s. The book would be condensed into a roll “no bigger than a typewriter ribbon” and would be read through a magnifying glass (Brown 28). After inserting the roll into the machine, the reader would set the speed regulator, and the text would appear before the eyes’ in a single, rapidly-moving line (Brown 28). The reader would also be able to set the type size by moving the magnifying glass, thus, giving him more control over the