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Topic: Tech Industry

The British Library's online turn-up for the books

Summary: With Microsoft's help, the British Library is using Turning the Pages software to make its treasures available to as many people as possible

Colin Barker

By Colin Barker |

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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

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Topic: Tech Industry

Colin Barker

About Colin Barker

I have been a computer journalist for most of my working life although I did start in the wonderful world of accountancy. I have been editor of Compting magazine in London and prior to that held a number of editing jobs, including time spend at the late, lamented DEC Computing and was at one time London editor for Byte magazine.

Outside of work, my main interests are travelling, football and baseball. I lived for some years in Boston, Mass, and became an incurable Boston Red Sox fan as a result.

I have no particular qualifications for being a journalist other than a university degree and a lifelong curiosity about people.

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4 comments
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  • Silverlight: bah

    Annoying that the tax=payer funded British Library is pushing Microsoft proprietary tech. Mind you they were big supporters of OOXML, so MS obviously have someone on the inside.

    Yours

    A disgruntled Linux User
    rimbaud-0c335
    Reply Vote

  • Where is Linux in the equation?

    It is a good point. Where does Linux feature in the BL's plans?
    The answer is that it doesn't and for a reason and many would say that it is not a good reason.
    The British Library funtions with a combination of public money (yes, we taxpayers do fund much of it) and private donations. The donations come from lots of different people including Microsoft who contribute a shed load of money to the work there.
    So on the one hand, Microsoft cannot tell the BL to do certain things or it will not give it the cash. But it can say, our money will go on this project (but not these others) so if you want the money do projects we like. It is then up to the Library to choose.
    My suggestion for open source and Linux fans is imple. Send the Library some money and tell them you want an open source version of Turning the Pages. That is what I am doing.
    But don't blame the library for not doing a project it does not have the money for. It has many other projects on its plate and not just Turning the Pages.
    In no way is that a perfect solution and I am sure there must be a better one.
    Colin Barker
    Reply Vote

  • Turning the pages

    I read the North Wales Pioneer, Llandudno edition , E-version, and they use Page Suite, which is Macromedia flash. It works very well. I plan on trying out the BL's site very soon, as I am fascinated by old books.
    ator1940
    Reply Vote

  • Turning pages.

    Missing a plugin called, applicatio/xdirector, in Mozilla Firefox, on Linux. So, it would appear it is only for windows until Firefox has the plugin. I really think major sites should be cross platform and not OS specific. But, that's not the Microsoft way.
    ator1940
    Reply Vote
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