I’ve never really given much thought to this, but apparently this was once the way that books were transported about the place before thousands of Amazon Prime vans scuttled around the country. The printed sheets would be placed in barrels which would be filled with dry straw to prevent moisture getting in. Then, the lucky book buyer could get the book bound themselves in the style which they liked. The museum notes that the city was the main centre of German book trading in the eighteenth century, surpassing even Frankfurt. I can only imagine the competitive fury that must have ignited between the printers, each trying to out-barrel the other.