Magical skulls that function as recorders are awesome! It would be perfect for a necromancer or church of a god of death. The book that pulls you in to witness the events reminds me of a Pensieve from the Harry Potter books, and a little bit of chalk pictures from Mary Poppins.
Enchanted crystals that circle the head of the "reader" and transplant the knowledge that way would be interesting too. It may need to loop multiple times based on length of "text" and the speed of the "reader."
A mirror that functions as a scrying device for a specific place and time frame, the longer the time frame the more expensive and difficult to make. The further back the time (at creation) the harder to collect all the information is.
A quill that writes out pages at a time, or arcane formulas, pictures, maps, etc, at a time and waits for a command word before moving on the next one. This would allow a busy wizard to research something and come back to it easily, just leave the quill alone.
A magical bookworm! It reads and sorts the books and can help locate anything in the designated "library" even if that is some broken and musty shelves. The bookworm just keeps doing its job. The bookworm could even be horrified to learn that some insects really do eat books, bindings, glue, paper, or the wood that makes up the bookshelf. The worm could even be able to read at an insane pace like 10,000 words per minute. Alright, this isn't a book, but it would be really cool for the party to find.
