The Biblio-Mat is a random antiquarian book vending machine located at The Monkey's Paw bookstore in Toronto, Canada designed by visual artist Craig Small. [1]
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The Biblio-Mat is a random antiquarian book vending machine located at The Monkey's Paw bookstore in Toronto, Canada designed by visual artist Craig Small. [1]
Stephen Fowler, owner of The Monkey's Paw, and his friend Craig Small conceived of the Biblio-Mat in 2012. [2] Fowler, looking for ways to attract customers to his shop’s booth at an upcoming street fair, shared with Small his idea of painting a large cardboard box to look like a vending machine, inside of which an assistant would drop an old random book out of a slot in exchange for a coin. Small loved the idea, but proposed creating a real mechanized vending machine instead. [3] The Biblio-Mat was installed at The Monkey’s Paw in November of 2012. [4] The original price to vend a book was CDN$2. [5] In 2022, the price was increased to $5. [6]
The Biblio-Mat was inspired by vending machines from the 1940s and 50s and was designed to complement the existing aesthetic of The Monkey's Paw bookshop. [1] The machine's shell, made from a salvaged steel office storage locker, is painted pistachio-green at its base and ivory white on top. It features chrome accents and vintage lettering. [2] [7]
The insertion of a coin or token prompts the Biblio-Mat's microprocessor to randomly select a book from one of three vertical stacks and triggers an antique telephone bell that rings upon delivery. [1] The Biblio-Mat has been referred to as a “serendipity machine." [8] Small said, in an interview with CTV News: "You don't choose the book, the universe chooses it for you." [9]
Upon its launch, The Biblio-Mat attracted attention from international media outlets [10] [11] [12] [13] as well as thousands of blogs and specialty publications. [14] [15] [16] [17]
Authors Margaret Atwood, William Gibson, and Neil Gaiman are admirers of the Biblio-Mat. [18] [19] [20]
The Biblio-Mat consistently appears on lists of top Toronto attractions and is often cited as a reason people visit the city. [21] [22] [6] “People use the machine every day, people come visit us from all over the place,” Fowler told Global News in 2018. “Sometimes it feels like the thing is just running non-stop all day long.” [23] The website Atlas Obscura has listed the Biblio-Mat as number one among “Cool, Hidden, and Unusual Things to Do in Toronto.” [24]
In 2021, the musician Jack White, a Biblio-Mat fan, commissioned Small to build a random book machine for the third location of his Third Man Records store in the Soho district of London. [25] The machine, called The Literarium, dispenses random literature from White's publishing company, Third Man Books. [26]
The Biblio-Mat is cited in books about the book trade, including Bibliophile: An Illustrated Miscellany (2018) [27] and The Bookseller's Tale (2020). [28]
People have used the machine to propose marriage on at least two occasions. [29]
In 2013, a Monkey's Paw customer named Vincent Lui used the Biblio-Mat once a week for a year and wrote a review of every book it dispensed. [30] Lui's project was celebrated during Biblio-Mat Fanatic Day. [31]
In 2018, the Biblio-Mat was featured on an episode of The Amazing Race Canada . [32]
Indigo Books & Music Inc., known as "Indigo" and stylized "!ndigo", is Canada's only major English-language bookstore chain. It is Canada's largest book, gift, and specialty toy retailer, operating stores in all ten provinces and one territory, and through a website offering a selection of books, toys, home décor, stationery, and gifts. Most Chapters and Indigo stores include a Starbucks café inside. As of 2022, Indigo has started selling music, and select audio equipment.
Charing Cross Road is a street in central London running immediately north of St Martin-in-the-Fields to St Giles Circus, which then merges into Tottenham Court Road. It leads from the north in the direction of Charing Cross at the south side of Trafalgar Square. It connects via St Martin's Place and the motorised east side of the square.
Margaret Eleanor Atwood is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, teacher, environmental activist, and inventor. Since 1961, she has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of nonfiction, nine collections of short fiction, eight children's books, two graphic novels, and a number of small press editions of both poetry and fiction. Atwood has won numerous awards and honors for her writing, including two Booker Prizes, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Governor General's Award, the Franz Kafka Prize, Princess of Asturias Awards, and the National Book Critics and PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Awards. A number of her works have been adapted for film and television.
The Giller Prize is a literary award given to a Canadian author of a novel or short story collection published in English the previous year, after an annual juried competition between publishers who submit entries. The prize was established in 1994 by Toronto businessman Jack Rabinovitch in honour of his late wife Doris Giller, a former literary editor at the Toronto Star, and is awarded in November of each year along with a cash reward with the winner being presented by the previous year's winning author.
A vending machine is an automated machine that dispenses items such as snacks, beverages, cigarettes, and lottery tickets to consumers after cash, a credit card, or other forms of payment are inserted into the machine or otherwise made. The first modern vending machines were developed in England in the early 1880s and dispensed postcards. Vending machines exist in many countries and, in more recent times, specialized vending machines that provide less common products compared to traditional vending machine items have been created.
Book collecting is the collecting of books, including seeking, locating, acquiring, organizing, cataloging, displaying, storing, and maintaining whatever books are of interest to a given collector. The love of books is bibliophilia, and someone who loves to read, admire, and a person who collects books is often called a bibliophile but can also be known as an bibliolater, meaning being overly devoted to books, or a bookman which is another term for a person who has a love of books.
W & G Foyle Ltd. is a bookseller with a chain of seven stores in England. It is best known for its flagship store in Charing Cross Road, London. Foyles was once listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's largest bookshop in terms of shelf length, at 30 miles (48 km), and of number of titles on display. It was bought by Waterstones in 2018.
Montolieu is a commune in the Aude department in southern France.
Philip Reeve is a British author and illustrator of children's books, primarily known for the 2001 book Mortal Engines and its sequels. His 2007 novel, Here Lies Arthur, based on the legendary King Arthur, won the Carnegie Medal.
Bookselling is the commercial trading of books which is the retail and distribution end of the publishing process.
Art-o-mat machines are repurposed cigarette vending machines that dispense cigarette pack-sized artwork.
Adrian Harrington is a notable antiquarian bookseller, a Past President of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association (ABA), 2001–2003, and a recent Past President of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB). He has exhibited at major international book fairs in America, Canada, Hong Kong, Britain and Ireland, and between 2000 and 2010 Harrington was the chairman of Britain's leading rare book event, the summer ABA Book Fair at Olympia, London. During his tenure, it was host to opening speakers including authors Jacqueline Wilson, Lynda La Plante, Joanna Lumley, Bob Geldof, Jeremy Paxman, Andrew Marr, Barry Humphries, Frederick Forsyth and former Poet Laureate Sir Andrew Motion. Harrington has been a regular consultant on rare books for Millers Price Guide, and has been interviewed on book-related matters by the BBC, and Australian Television
Biblio is a privately owned international online marketplace specializing in rare and collectible books. Biblio was established in 2000 in Asheville, North Carolina, by Brendan Sherar and Michael Tracey. Biblio also provides e-commerce solutions and web services to multiple professional bookseller associations, including the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America (ABAA), the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB), the Antiquarian Booksellers Association (ABA), and the Australian and New Zealand Association of Antiquarian Booksellers (ANZAAB).
The Monkey's Paw is an independent used bookstore in Toronto, Ontario, Canada known for its eclectic, arcane, and absurd books, and for the Biblio-Mat, a random book vending machine.
Walter Goldwater was an American antiquarian bookseller, who worked briefly at International Publishers before founding University Place Book Shop in Manhattan, part of "Book Row". He was also a co-founder and publisher of Dissent magazine and a noted tournament chess player.
Justin Galland Schiller is an American bookseller specializing in rare and collectible children's books; proprietor during his student days under his own name (1960–69), then Justin G. Schiller, Ltd. (1969–2020). Headquartered in New York City, it was the oldest specialist firm in the United States, focusing on historical and collectible children's books, related original art, and manuscripts. In 1988, he formed a second corporation—Battledore Ltd, with his partner and spouse Dennis M V David, to further specialize in original children's book illustration art and the legacy of Maurice Sendak.
Judd Books is a new and secondhand bookshop based near King's Cross and Russell Square, London, close to the British Library, that specialises in art and social science books.
Craig Small is a Canadian visual artist, director and animator known for his motion graphic work and the Biblio-Mat book vending machine. He founded Toronto-based design and production studio The Juggernaut in 2002 and is a member of the band Communism.
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