__NOTOC__ The Biblio-Mat is a random antiquarian book

vending machine A vending machine is an automated machine that provides 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 ...

located at

The Monkey's Paw "The Monkey's Paw" is a horror short story by English author W. W. Jacobs, first published in the collection '' The Lady of the Barge'' in 1902. In the story, three wishes are granted to the owner of The Monkey's Paw, but the wishes come with ...

bookstore in

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Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

History

Origin

Stephen Fowler, owner of The Monkey's Paw, and his friend Craig Small conceived of the Biblio-Mat in 2012. 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. The Biblio-Mat was installed at The Monkey’s Paw in November of 2012. The original price to vend a book was

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2. In 2022, the price was increased to $5.

Design

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. 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.

Random delivery system

The insertion of a coin or token prompts the Bilbio-Mat's

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to randomly select a book from one of three vertical stacks and triggers an antique

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bell that rings upon delivery. The Biblio-Mat has been referred to as a “ serendipity machine." Small said, in an interview with

CTV News CTV News is the news division of the CTV Television Network in Canada. The name ''CTV News'' is also applied as the title of local and regional newscasts on the network's owned-and-operated stations (O&Os), which are closely tied to the national ...

: "You don't choose the book, the universe chooses it for you."

Reception

Upon its launch, The Biblio-Mat attracted attention from international media outlets as well as thousands of blogs and specialty publications. Authors Margaret Atwood,

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, and Neil Gaiman are admirers of the Biblio-Mat.

Influence

The Biblio-Mat consistently appears on lists of top Toronto attractions and is often cited as a reason people visit the city. “People use the machine every day, people come visit us from all over the place,” Fowler told

Global News Global News is the news and current affairs division of the Canadian Global Television Network. The network is owned by Corus Entertainment, which oversees all of the network's national news programming as well as local news on its 21 owned- ...

in 2018. “Sometimes it feels like the thing is just running non-stop all day long.” The website

Atlas Obscura ''Atlas Obscura'' is an American-based online magazine and travel company. It was founded in 2009 by author Joshua Foer and documentary filmmaker/author Dylan Thuras. It catalogs unusual and obscure travel destinations via user-generated conten ...

has listed the Biblio-Mat as number one among “Cool, Hidden, and Unusual Things to Do in Toronto.” In 2021, the musician

Jack White John Anthony White (; born July 9, 1975), commonly known as Jack White, is an American musician, best known as the lead singer and guitarist of the duo the White Stripes. White has enjoyed consistent critical and popular success and is widely c ...

, a Biblio-Mat fan, commissioned Small to build a random book machine for the third location of his

Third Man Records Third Man Records is an eclectic, vinyl-focused independent record label founded and owned by Jack White, Ben Blackwell and Ben Swank. The company operates out of three locations—Nashville, Tennessee, Detroit, Michigan, and Soho, London—with ...

store in the

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district of

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. The machine, called The Literarium, dispenses random literature from White's publishing company, Third Man Books. The Biblio-Mat is cited in books about the book trade, including ''Bibliophile: An Illustrated Miscellany'' (2018) and ''The Bookseller's Tale'' (2020).

Notable uses

People have used the machine to propose marriage on at least two occasions. 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. Lui's project was celebrated during Biblio-Mat Fanatic Day. In 2018, the Biblio-Mat was featured on an episode of '' The Amazing Race Canada''.{{Cite web , date=2018-08-09 , title=Twitter: The Amazing Race Canada on CTV. It's #BookLoversDay! LIKE if you're reading an AMAZING book! , url=https://twitter.com/amazingracecda/status/1027561072423825409 , access-date=2022-04-03 , website=Twitter , language=en

References

Vending machines Antiquarian booksellers Bookselling Inventions