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Today, we often see ourselves as the first generations to go beyond book-focused civilization. But as far back as the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries there were attempts to go beyond the book, both in theory and practice, in both the US and in Europe. This article revisits one of the pioneers of this movement, Paul Otlet, whose work, inventions and projects specifically aimed to promote what he called “book substitutes” as diverse as the magazine, the index card, television, and telecommunications. Otlet theorized his approach using the concept of the “biblion.” He also proposed practical “solutions” and imagined bold projects that to some extent anticipated the Internet. This paper proposes a new reading of his work.