About

Introduction

The quest for the “real thing” is not always satisfied. Among the most beautiful and sought after objects of antiquity are the books and manuscripts created hundreds of years ago, and carefully preserved in libraries. Unfortunately for library patrons, these are not always made accessible, for the simple reason that everyday use will surely harm these precious items: the evidence of humanity’s search for knowledge.

To address this problem, the British Library initially created a system, Turning The Pages or TTP, for visitors to touch and turn the pages of virtual books displayed on a touchscreen monitor in an intuitive manner. With their collaboration the National Library of Medicine became the first US site for TTP in 2001, converting books from our own historic collection in the biomedical sciences to this format.

In creating our version of TTP at NLM, we have refined the original technology by using advanced 3D computer generated imagery, digital image enhancement, animation, illumination models and software programming to simulate the act of easily flipping through virtual books displayed in a highly photorealistic manner. In addition, our TTP provides extra information about the authors of the books and the subject matter in the form of curators’ notes and captions.

These books may be seen on kiosks at the NLM’s Visitors Center and the History of Medicine Division.

Now we offer TTP Online, a Web-accessible version of TTP, for the enjoyment of home users with an Internet connection. Using Adobe Flash we provide Web users a compelling and nearly identical version of the virtual books in the kiosks. For users of Apple’s iPad we also make a limited selection of books available in our TTP iPad app, available in the appstore.

Available below are links to powerpoint presentations and Flash demos which describe the process of making a TTP book for kiosk and web, as well as links to other TTP books

• The Technology Under the Hood, behind the scenes of a book (PPT).
• The Technology Under the Hood, how we produce TTP (flash demo).
• TTP+ Vesalius slide show (Vesalius tales only available in kiosk version of TTP)
• TTP at Vanderbilt University

• Adobe Flash Player
• A modern browser with javascript enabled (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, IE9)
• For best viewing in Internet Explorer please ensure the compatibility view button is turned off
• 512MB of RAM
• A minimum of 720 lines of vertical resolution (720p @16:9 or 1024×768 @4:3 aspect ratio)
• High speed internet connection (DSL, Cable, FIOS, T1)

A Turning the Pages kiosk at NLMs Visitor Center