A woven Book of Hours

Discover this amazing artefact held in the Barr Smith Library. For the 1889 Paris Exposition Universelle world fair, bookseller and publisher A. Roux of Lyon, entered his award winning Livre de Prières tissé d'après les enluminures des manuscrits du XIVe au XVI siecle. This is no ordinary book - it was fabricated from silk threads woven on a Jacquard Loom . This device, patented by Joseph Marie Jacquard in 1804, used the concept of punched cards to control a weaving operation. Considered an important step in the history of computing, it is known to have inspired Charles Babbage 's Analytical Engine.