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British Library right to your computer

Posted By: Tina Wood | Mar 1st, 2007 @ 7:22 PM
Tim Sneath, our resident WPF and Vista expert, takes us into the British Library.  Well, some of their most prized possessions at least.  The idea behind this is that you don't actually have to fly to London and buy a ticket to the British Library to be able to experience some of these works.  Through the power of Vista, ancient titles -- hundreds of years old -- have been scanned in and you lose almost none of the authenticity in the transfer.  See for yourself.  It really is amazing. 
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Posted By: LZIM | Mar 4th, 2007 @ 11:11 AM
You seemed very impressed. You kept licking your lips.
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Posted By: Arztek | Mar 3rd, 2007 @ 7:30 PM
The end of the week has a way of distracting us all...so I don't think anybody was thinking about leaving immediate replies.  You beat us all to it, T-Dub. :)

I remember the preview to the “Turn the Page” application from a month ago when 10 first mentioned it.  I replied with just about everything you said.  This is an absolutely amazing research tool and I really feel it’s only in its infancy.

Could you imagine the Dead Sea Scrolls or the works of the Louvre painstakingly recreated on a computer?  It would facilitate the propagation of international historical research around the globe.

About six years ago I did a summer internship for a company in south Jersey that was in the process of converting their paperback business library into a computer database that any station on the compound could access and research.  I had to scan in an entire library worth of data; it was tedious and took all summer.  Everything had to be scanned at least by 300 dpi.

I would love the opportunity to go back and actually model 3D pages for the library instead of flat pdfs.  It would really be awesome to create something like what the British Library is doing.
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Posted By: linkyshinks | Mar 3rd, 2007 @ 6:04 PM

Tina i have just checked it out through XP and .NET 3.0 and i have to say it is a brilliant app :).

 I have just been browsing through William Blakes note books with all his wonderfull little sketches and the two Da Vinci codex books available.

The manipulation is brilliant everything is sooo smooth, it's almost like having the real thing in front of you, the only shame was not having a mirror and a latin translator for all the twisted text in the Da Vinci books, luvz da Vinci went to a exhibition here in London Last month at the Victoria and Albert museum in South Kensington, it specifically exhibited his drawings and nothing more.

This will prove to be a great research resource when more such books become available, thanks again. LS :)
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Re: British Library right to your computer

Posted By: linkyshinks | Mar 3rd, 2007 @ 3:58 PM

Cool i wont have to travel down there to conduct research for my paintings, to date i have only been there twice to do so, i did actually hear about them doing this, scaning their prized manuscripts etc, there was a major theft recently where someone was eventually caught t selling pages from texts that were in effect priceless that he had cut out, anyway great feature and a reminder of a good resource for research the British Library is. LS

Blog on Tina:) LS
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Direct Link

Posted By: Sampy | Mar 2nd, 2007 @ 3:11 PM
If you have Vista or XP with SP2 and .Net 3.0, you can view the app by going right to the TurningPages 2.0 application.
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Re: British Library right to your computer

Posted By: Tina Wood | Mar 2nd, 2007 @ 2:33 PM
I don't think I've ever been the first to comment.  I was incredibly impressed with what Tim brought to the table in this piece and want to thank him for coming on. 
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