The Dunedin Public Library is taking a trip back in time, offering visitors the chance to soak up some of literature's most important steps of history.
The library's Reed Gallery is hosting its summer exhibition, 'The Glory of Print: A Celebration of Printing Specimens from Gutenburg Onwards'.
The exhibition showcases a collection of books and leaves that helped shape the way things are printed today, taking visitors on a journey through Europe's rich printing history.
The hefty collection dates all the way back to the mid-1400s.
Reed Rare Books Librarian Julian Smith loves a number of the books on display.
He said the technique used is one that was the "birth of massive invention", and the beginning of a process that has scarcely changed for another 400 years.
The Reed Gallery was opened in 2006, to create a dedicated space for the large amount of heritage books donated to the library from Alfred Hamish Reed, dating back to the 1940s.
Among A.H. Reed's vast and valuable collection was a single leaf out of the Gutenberg Bible.
This historic piece of literature was the first major printed book to come out of Europe, and this leaf was the only example held in New Zealand until 2 years ago, when the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington added one to its collection.
The Gutenberg Bible is billed as the star attraction within the Glory of Print exhibition, and Mr Smith believes it is "one of the most important inventions in Western Civilization" within a European printing context.
"Visitors can get a sense of that, and its great beauty as well," he said.
This rich history of European and English printed works will be on display at the Reed Gallery (on the 3rd floor of Dunedin Public Library), until the 25th of February.
