diglib: Electronic-Book Technology Makes Rare Volume Accessible to Readers

[mrwatson@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU]

This article from The Chronicle of Higher Education 
(http://chronicle.com) was forwarded to you from: mrwatson@oregon.uoregon.edu

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The following message was enclosed:
  DigLib Group:
  
  Another e-book approach.
  
  Mark

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  Monday, March 19, 2001



  Electronic-Book Technology Makes Rare Volume Accessible to
  Readers

  By JESSICA LUDWIG
  
   
  
  A Curious Herbal,  a rare book from the 18th century, would
  normally be housed in a glass case with only one page set
  open. But, as a result of a collaboration with the British
  Library, visitors to the National Library of Medicine here now
  can leaf through an electronic version of the volume using
  touch-screen technology.
  
  Specialists at the British Library began digitizing select
  volumes in response to visitor requests to see more of the
  institution's rare books.  Officials at both institutions have
  been working for three years to bring a rare medical book to
  the United States. A Curious Herbal was a natural selection
  since both institutions have editions of the book.
  
  To create the virtual volume, the book's pages were scanned
  and then digitized using Adobe Photoshop. Next, the book's
  images and frames were compiled using Director 4, a graphics
  animation program produced by Macromedia. The touch-screen
  technology allows users to move back and forth between pages.
  A Curious Herbal is the seventh rare book in the British
  Library to be digitized for public access. The first book made
  available through the program was The Lindisfarne Gospels.
  
  Joseph Fitzgerald, the chief of graphics at the National
  Library of Medicine, said the digitized installation of A
  Curious Herbal was timely because of the growing interest in
  using herbs and plants for medicinal purposes. 
  
  He also said the extraordinary life of the book's author,
  Elizabeth Blackwell, made the volume noteworthy. Ms. Blackwell
  created the herbal book to raise money for the release of her
  husband from debtors' prison.  An artist and engraver, she
  made sketches of 40 plants and flowers in the Chelsea Physick
  Garden in London. She then made engravings of the sketches,
  printed them, and colored in the 500 plates by hand. The
  volume was originally published between 1737 and 1739, and
  fewer than 60 copies now exist.
  
  The virtual edition's touch screen adds an invaluable
  interactive quality to experiencing the book that would not be
  provided by a CD-ROM version of the book, said Donald  A.B.
  Lindberg, the director of the National Library of Medicine, at
  Friday's unveiling of the project. "In my view, it's the first
  innovation that makes it fun to read and look at text pages on
  a computer screen," he said.
  
  The user opens the virtual brownish-red leather volume by
  dragging a hand or a few fingers across the screen. Tap the
  screen or drag a finger firmly across, and the pages turn.
  
  But the book is sensitive to a "heavy touch" and will stop in
  the middle of turning a page. David Russon, the deputy chief
  executive of the British Library, said of demonstrating the
  project to the Queen of England: "The one great problem we
  found was that the Queen always wears gloves." The touch
  screen will not respond to such material and needs the
  traction created by direct contact with flesh. 
  
  Two buttons in the lower right corner of the screen allow the
  user to zoom in on an image or to hear an audio clip relating
  the medicinal uses of the plant. For example, among the things
  we learn about St. John's Wort is that when taken with a
  little wine, it was thought to protect against melancholy and
  madness. Zooming in on a plate produces a detailed image of
  the plant in the upper left corner of the  screen. 
  
  A Curious Herbal is a permanent exhibit and will have three
  demonstration sites in the National Library. Mr. Fitzgerald
  said that a future addition to the project might be to add
  links to Internet sites that provide further information on
  clinical trials of the plants and herbs featured in the book. 
  
  "It's a marvelous way to disperse knowledge but at the same
  time protect it,"  Mr. Fitzgerald said.
  

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Copyright 2001 by The Chronicle of Higher Education