The British Library is bringing some of the world's rarest books online, with the intent of giving as wide an audience as possible the most accurate experience of reading the real thing.
To that end, it is using a unique piece of software called Turning the Pages, designed to allow readers to look at rare books in a natural way. With Turning the Pages, users can read the books in their original format, almost exactly as they were intended to be read by their original audience.
So far, the library has been able to digitize and transfer around 20 books into Turning the Pages, although the program could eventually encompass millions of books. The interface presents the books as if they were physically present on the screen, with controls for moving through the book as though the pages were being turned.
The example above shows the handwritten dedication page from Alice's Adventures Under Ground, the original title of Alice in Wonderland. Charles Dodgson (also known as Lewis Carroll) wrote the book at the request of the daughter of one of his friends.
Photo by British Library
Caption by Colin Barker
