One of the major technological shifts that took place in early Christianity was the transition from the book as scroll (a long roll of paper or parchment) to the book as codex (folded sheets of paper stitched together into bundles protected by a wrapper of thicker material). In Christianity and the Transformation of the Boook: Origen, Eusebius, and the Library of Caesarea (Belknap Press, 2006) [HL BR67.2 .G73 2006] Anthony Grafton and Megan Williams sketch out how this revolutionary change in the technology of the book took place in the book production of Origen and Eusebius of Caesarea in the third and fourth centuries. The codex afforded significant advantages over the scroll for the study and comparison of rival versions of Scripture (e.g., Origen's Hexapla, a 6-column parallel version of Scripture) and the study and writing of history (e.g., Eusebius' historical work and chronologies). See the review by Eamon Duffy, "Early Christian Impresarios," New York Review of Books 54:5 (29 March 2007).From scroll to codex didn't happen without stress. This video from Norwegian television gives us a possible scenario from a medieval IT Help Desk (though user frustration was probably focused in the early Christian era rather than the late medieval setting portrayed in the video):
