Must Read: Galaxy Note 8.0 tablet: Beating the iPad mini (review)

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 |

 |  Image 5 of 6

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

  • Thumbnail 1
  • Thumbnail 2
  • Thumbnail 3
  • Thumbnail 4
  • Thumbnail 5
  • Thumbnail 6

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.

Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily email newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.

Related Stories

Talkback

4 comments
Log in or register to join the discussion

  • 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
CNET Join | Log In | Privacy | Cookies Close