Bibliomat

Meet the Bibliomat: a homemade vending machine for old books (video)

If you're mooching around for second-hand books, you probably give the bargain bin a very wide berth. Toronto bookseller The Monkey's Paw, however, wanted to jazz up the experience of selling unwanted literature, so it hired effects whizz Craig Small to design the Bibliomat. With the use of a few levers, pulleys and a telephone bell, he built a vending machine that offers up a random title when you feed it $2. If you're not in the area, you can watch how it works in the video after the break, and if you are, we advise you don't go with pockets full of cash -- you might wind up with fifty copies of something you need to donate to goodwill.