Welcome to the Museum of the eBook!

Proposing a museum collecting eBook readers might seem a bold move, since this reading technology is relatively young.

However, the Museum was founded by Luca Calcinai back in 2009, when he showcased some devices for reading electronic books at the Book Fair in Turin, Italy.

On that occasion, all the devices were borrowed from several individuals and businesses.

At the beginning, the name "museum" was deliberately chosen to be provocative and to criticize those who were convinced that eBook technology was just the latest futuristic gadget that would never leave research labs to be actually used by common people.

Even then, some of the showcased devices were already out of production, like the Apple Newton, which was introduced in 1994, and is generally considered the first commercial eBook reader.

Since its inception, the collection has grown thanks to donations and repairing of broken readers, and it is still expanding, thanks to rapid obsolescence of the commercial devices due to the extremely fast introduction of new models on the market.

Nowadays eBooks are becoming increasingly popular and more and more publishing professionals and corporations are producing digital contents: the initial bet on a museum of the eBook has proved successful!

The Museum, which counts around a hundred readers, is maintained and managed by the eBook Club Italia (EBCI), a no profit association to promote reading, especially with digital devices.

Currently there is no stable exhibition hall for the Museum, since the EBCI showcases the collection at several public events organized through the year, mainly in Italy.

Upon request from other agencies and associations, the EBCI can arrange a special exhibition of the collection.