What is the Meaning & Definition of book

A book is a work (which can be handwritten, printed or painted) arranged in sheets of paper bound and protected by a cover. Generally, to be considered a book, you must have at least 50 pages, and can be distributed in multiple volumes or volumes. Book call a work that deals with anything even containing no words, but only images. Often a book is comprised of a cover that protects the leaves, a spine that brings the binding, anteportada, front and back, body of work consisting of leaves, preface or introduction, index, chapters and other complementary elements. A book can be scientific, literary or linguistic, travel, biographical, text or study, reference or consultation as a dictionary, and many other variants. Is you can speak of books almost since time immemorial and through various techniques production as in Paleolithic cave paintings, which "print" their memories in stone. While in ancient cultures such as the Egyptian Empire (with its Papyrus) and Babylonian civilizations (with their texts carved in stone) were some dissemination of early books, during the antiquity and European average books were rare and expensive and produced by hand on parchment. In addition, given the low level of literacy in the European society of the time, only a few people could write with the precision necessary for the conservation of these manuscripts; generally, Noblemen and members of the clergy only achieved the preservation of books on that historic stage. From the creation of printing from movable type by Gutenberg around the year 1450, with the associated lowering of costs, began a "bibliographic explosion" that generated the proliferation of printed books. The emergence and popularization of libraries are linked to this explosion that hit levels featured in the modern age and is exacerbated in modern times. At the end of 1971 began to develop what is now known as digital or electronic book and in 1981 the first book of this kind goes on sale. One of the pioneers in the use of this technology was Stephen King, who launched his novel ' Riding the Bullet' through the network. An idea linked to this technology was the Gutenberg project, seeking the creation of a digital library for free. The current technical means have allowed so the installation of a paradox; on the one hand, the emergence of texts in PDF format or in the form of e-books have resulted in a historic step in the diffusion of books, making them almost immediate reach of all users connected to a computer or mobile phone. However, concern over the dissolution of author's rights could constitute a form of discourage writers living in the marketing of their books, so less texts would be written over time. The web itself has offered a solution, with the advent of systems of micropayments that allow a writer to collect small aliquots for the discharge of each of its digital books. Therefore, many librarians believe that, actually, books are in a transition similar to that observed with the arrival of the printing press of Gutenberg that we mentioned before. However, unlike those times in which the manuscript book became a collector's item, the current printed books probably never will disappear from circulation, due to its portability and the pleasure that reading in many users, whether they are familiar or not with new technologies.