ABSTRACT
The development of materials was traditionally driven both by aesthetic and technological goals. At the end of the nineteenth century, things changed dramatically. Scientists started being able to analyse composition, detect structure and make a link between structure and properties. The subsequent twentieth-century revolution in new materials changed almost all aspects of human activity. Materials libraries have emerged as one solution to this problem. Like a library of books, these are repositories of knowledge, but instead of books, they contain the materials themselves. Physical access to samples of materials is the crucial aspect of these libraries, because many aspects of materials are currently unquantifiable, and so a hands-on sensory interface is seen as a vital part of the design process. The defining material of that century, steel, allowed engineers to give full rein to their dreams of creating suspension bridges, railways, steam engines and passenger liners.
