Turning the Pages 2.0

[Jhaks]

Sigh... people need to try this out before they bash it. You have no idea why this is such a great application. It is a 3D application that lets you interact with very rare collections in 3D. You can rotate and move the book around, zoom in, magnify, and actually turn the pages. There are many collaborative and annotative features like listening to audio comments. Windows Presentation Foundation makes these applications much easier to develop.

WPF is also available in XP.

[notuptome]

TP2.0 uses heavy use of WPF windows presentation foundation layer technologies in vista and such

[PannEuropean]

I can only compliment the BL for producing such an innovative and engaging experience to bring these wonderful and precious historical artifacts to a wider audience. I do wonder if there would be a similar response concerning the funding if Steve Jobs (Apple CEO) was behind the project!

[rockerhanbag]

The British Library is threatened with having its budget slashed, hence links with a company like Microsoft shows considerable initiative in trying to retain & expand the public's access to our wonderful heritage of old books & documents, which include the Magna Carta,The Diamond Sutra & other treasures. There are some amazing items in the British Library & if the Vista initiative encourages more people to visit the Library either in person or online, then that will be a major achievement.

[kentfitch]

There are plenty of good examples of adding notes, tags, searching & debating using common browser capabilities. This feels like a MS ad for Vista & whilst MS should be congratulated for funding the digitisation work & should feel free to produce their own ads bragging about it, should the BL release a video that spruiks "Windows Vista" so blatantly under their own logo? If 99% of the world, ie users of Mac, Linux, Win2K, WinXP etc are able to participate shouldn't the video at least say so?

[kentfitch]

"What we've done using Windows Vista is .. make it more valid as a research tool by adding things like notes, search facility and an opportunity .. to enter into debate"<BR/> This implies the just-released Windows Vista, is the enabler of a "more valid research tool". I'm not sure why a library wanting to engage as many people as possible would choose to make their display technology "more valid as a research tool" by tying the means of research interaction to a single software platform.

[AdrianArthur]

As a stretched public body we could not have built Turning the Pages 2.0 without Microsoft. They funded digitisation of our Leonardo Codex and worked hard on the system. The result is wonderful interactivity. Of course we want this to be available to all. There are always platform issues so we provide simple access to some volumes. But a free plugin in development at Microsoft should bring a Vista-like experience to other platforms. Not perfect. But not sinister. Adrian Arthur, Web Services

[GilgongoJones]

For the British Library to make what is in effect an ad for Microsoft is rather sinister, I think. You could reasonably do this with various other technologies. Are the images of these books are stored in open formats? What licenses agreements exist between the Library and Microsoft? For a public body to sell Britain's literary heritage to an American monopolist is most certainly NOT what "the Internet is for."

[quikboy2]

This is amazing!