30 Jul 2008 16:13
The British Library is bringing some of the world's rarest books online, with the intent of giving as wide an audience as possible the most accurate experience of reading the real thing.
Turning the Pages is a unique piece of software designed to allow readers to look at rare books in a natural way. With Turning the Pages, users can read the books in their original format, almost exactly as they were intended to be read by their original audience.
So far, the library has been able to digitise and transfer around 20 books into Turning the Pages, although the programme could eventually encompass millions of books. The interface presents the books as if they were physically present on the screen, with controls for moving through the book as though the pages were being turned.
Another important concept behind the Turning the Pages programme is that books are chosen that will be of great value to the viewing public.
The example above shows the handwritten dedication page from Alice's Adventures Under Ground, the original title of Alice in Wonderland. Charles Dodgson (also known as Lewis Carroll) wrote the book at the request of the daughter of one of his friends.
Photo credit: British Library
Another view of Alice's Adventures Under Ground enables the reader to see the book's text as originally envisaged.
'The Mouse's Tale' is a familiar feature of Alice in Wonderland as we see it today, but, in Alice's Adventures Under Ground, the words written by Dodgson are quite different. These differences between the original and finished versions of a book pique the interest of those who want to know the full story.
Photo credit: British Library
Turning the Pages uses 65-megapixel cameras to digitise the pages, and animates the turning process. Shown is a page from the library's copy of Leonardo da Vinci's codex.
"The system was developed with Armadillo Systems," explained Stephen Lilgert, head of infrastructure strategy and development at the British Library.
"It gives you the look and feel of turning the pages. At the launch of Vista, Bill Gates did one of the events here at the library itself. The codex was digitised and made available to people running Vista, and it will work with XP as well. With the Vista version, you can make notes on it," said Lilgert.
Versions are available for Adobe Shockwave on the PC and Mac, but a more detailed version is limited to Microsoft's Silverlight platform. No Linux version is available.
"We are moving the [Adobe] Shockwave version onto Microsoft's Silverlight technology," said Lilgert. "As I understand it, Microsoft has paid the [US] Library of Congress over $1m [£505m] to convert the whole of their website to Silverlight. The Shockwave one is okay, but it is still not the same level of zooming that you get with Silverlight."
The system currently does not turn the pages smoothly and they frequently "stick". However, it is still possible to get a feel of reading the original book.
The project has moved on with the close co-operation of Microsoft. "What [Microsoft] got out of it was a whole load of book content as they try to play catch-up with Google," Lilgert told ZDNet.co.uk.
"So they approached us — because we have a very good relationship with Microsoft on a whole host of things — about digitising a whole load of books. So what we got was someone who was going to help us with the funding of a large digitisation project and we were getting more experience on actually digitising the material in the first place," Lilgert said.
Photo credit: British Library
Turning the Pages in progress.
Photo credit: British Library
With Turning the Pages, you can smoothly unravel this ancient scroll and notice how, as one roll gets thinner, the other gets fatter.
Until now, only academics, operating under strict environmental rules for the purpose of preservation, have had this experience.
Photo credit: British Library
As well as some of the oldest and rarest books, the library can also lay claim to some of the most beautiful works of the illustrator's art, such as this medieval text. You can read the book and the written text in your own language, while fully appreciating the aesthetic experience.
With some 20 books already in the Turning the Pages catalogue, the plan is to add many more. For the coming years, a target of 200 additions has been mentioned.
Getting the books ready for viewing takes a lot of scanning and compiling work, but the end result is truly spectacular.
Photo credit: British Library
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