Modern Scrolls

There are two parts to this invention, the first one of which is known to be old and widely known to have existed: scrolls.

So far as I know, no one publishes books in scroll format any more. Nevertheless, the ordinary paper-book publishing process could easily be adapted for producing scrolls. They already start with large rolls of paper that are processed by modern printing presses. Just change the orientation of the printing to remove the need to cut the paper into segments, and so the print can flow seamlessly along the length of the paper-roll.

Make cuts only near the beginning and the end of the book. Add appropriate scroll rods, although the first could be added near the start of the printing process, so that the scroll can be wound around that rod as fast as the printed continuous sheet exits the printer. If the last part of the book is printed first, and the first part printed last, then the rolled-up text on the scroll-rod will be fully prepared for reading by scrolling. Perhaps put the whole thing into a nice carrying case, and then sell.

The second invention is something that ought to have existed ages ago, but I never heard of such a thing, before, so....

We know that cranks and gears existed in ancient times, and therefore there should have existed a device into which one can insert the two rods of a scroll, separated by a length of unrolled scroll (perhaps 15-20 centimeters, or 6-8 inches), and by turning the crank one can scroll through the book quite efficiently. Move the crank from one scroll-rod to the other, and the book can be re-wound for the next person who wants to read it.

That's all.
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Well, that WAS all, until now, a few days after the original post (it is now the 15th).

The above Idea doesn't say anything about the fact that I only described printing on one side of the scroll. It has occurred to me that we could arrange printing half the book on each side, in a particular way.

Then, when the reader has finished half the book, the scroll-holding device can be turned over, and the process of scrolling through the 2nd half of the book, while reading it, becomes the same action as rewinding the first half of the book to the beginning.

The net result is that no one need to think about putting extra effort into rewinding the scroll for the next reader (and only half as much paper is needed for printing, also).

A modification to the reading-device could be appropriate, too. We could consider the basic thing to consist of a rectangle of rods. The two longer rods would be associated with the length of unscrolled paper, and these rods would also extend past the points where they connect to the other two rods.
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(That ASCII sketch does not portray the whole rod at right because we need a fixed-pitch font to do it correctly.)

The scroll-rods are attached to the ends of the longer rods. (In the ASCII sketch, the long left rod can double as a hinge-pin, as described farther down.)

Now think about the rectangular space in the middle, which the unscrolled paper would cover. If the book was printed on only one side of the paper, it could be fine to be an empty space.

But if the paper is printed on both sides, we probably want to block light passing through the paper (hard to read one side when you can also see the printing on the other side), so we need an opaque rectangular plate to fill that empty space.

But when we flip the holder over to read the other side of the scroll, that plate will be in the way. It needs to be hinged on one edge, and latch-able on the other edge. Now the plate can be unlatched, rotated around the hinge-pin rod until the plate's other edge again reaches the rod to which it can be latched again, and now the plate is again blocking light, but not blocking our ability to read the 2nd half of the book.