The real inventor of the eBook in 1949 will have a street in Madrid

The real inventor of the eBook in 1949 will have a street in Madrid

Ángela Ruiz Robles, teacher and committed to innovation, created a book that incorporated sounds, graphics and self-lighting

   Imagine an electronic book that contains all the subjects that the students will study in the course. That it includes all kinds of interactive graphics and drawings to facilitate the pedagogical work of teachers in the lower educational stages. And also to incorporate the possibility that the lessons could be played through a very useful voice system, for example, for people with some type of visual disability. Is it an 'e-book' or a tablet? Yes, but from 1949 and of Spanish origin . And it is that the León Angeles Ruiz Robles was almost half a century ahead of the idea of ​​the electronic book and found a great use: school.

   Ángeles Ruiz was born in Villamanín (León) in 1895. Since she was little, she excelled in her teaching vocation. Thus, it was clear to him that he chose to study teaching in Leon. There he began to teach typing or accounting classes. In 1918 she obtained a place as a teacher in a small village near Ferrol. There he remains several years and his work was recognized by the neighbors. In 1934 he took charge of the National School of Girls of the Hospice and later, in the forties, he received the Cross of Alfonso X the Wise in recognition of his commendable career.

Now the precursor of the electronic book will give its name to a street in the district of Villaverde , in Madrid. This was approved by the Governing Board of the City Council at the meeting held on Thursday.

Between class and class, Ruiz had time to conceive his great idea: the mechanical encyclopedia. Its objective was to concentrate all the books of the different subjects in a single one , on the one hand, to facilitate the access of the minors to education and on the other to achieve pedagogical improvements through more attractive contents.

Weighed five kilos
At first his intention was to create only a Grammatical Scientific Atlas where the syntactic, phonetic and morphological norms were collected. However, his ingenuity allowed him to embark on a more ambitious project. Thus, in 1949 he patented "a mechanical, electrical and air pressure procedure for reading books" . This portable gadget of 24 by 22 centimeters in size and five kilos already allowed the possibility of including all school content through a reel or content cartridges that allowed to add or exclude chapters depending on the needs. In addition, this mechanical book had reserved spaces for students to write.

Another key of the invention was its operability. That is to say, the obsession of this teacher was always to facilitate children's access to education. To do this, he thought of using resistant but cheap materials for his construction, such as plastics, to achieve an acceptable price for the greatest number of students. In addition, the idea was that some content could be printed in luminescent ink so that they could also be read in low light.

Without financing
However, despite the brilliance of its approach, no institution wanted to take over and finance the project. Something that did not demotivate its creator. Quite the opposite. After retiring in 1959 he insisted on his encyclopedia and brought new improvements such as the possibility of adding sound lessons that students could then listen to by pressing a simple button.

Once the improvements were made, Ruiz wanted to demonstrate to those institutions and organizations that had turned their back on the viability of his project. Thus, he directed in person the construction in the Artillery Park of Ferrol of a prototype of the mechanical encyclopedia. The result was shocking, but once again, ingenuity did not go beyond that first model and never came to market . Time has shown that the idea of ​​Angela Ruiz was not some crazy or impossible dream, but a tremendous innovation.