Turing the Pages 2.0™
Turning the Pages™ is a joint initiative between the British Library and Armadillo New Media Communications. The British Library came up with the concept in 1996 and Armadillo have been refining the software ever since. Armadillo are a new media consultancy specialising in the cultural sector. We have been developing interactive solutions since 1993 and won many awards along the way. Our approach to developing software is to work alongside key partners over the long term, developing innovative solutions tailored to their needs. We have worked with the British Library, The Wellcome Library, the National Library of Ireland, the Royal Society, and the British Museum amongst others. We specialise in producing unique applications that provide access and interpretation for items that would otherwise remain under glass and we understand the tension that exists between the need for conservation and the requirement of access.
We have developed a methodology of approaching bibliographic projects that encompasses thinking about the book in 5 ways:
- the book as object
- the book as content
- the book as icon
- the book as window into the past
- the book as gateway to future learning
Addressing each of these areas allow us to design applications that inspire as well as inform.
We develop solutions for gallery touchscreen systems as well as cd-rom and the internet, and our project list includes the following:
Jane Austen's History of England
Elizabeth Blackwell's Curious Herbal
William Blake's Songs of Innocence
Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures Under Ground
The Diamond Sutra
The Golden Haggadah
The Golf Book
The Hooke Folio
James Joyce Ulysses (No. 1 of the first edition)
James Joyce Paris and Pola Commonplace Books
James Joyce notebooks used in the creation of Ulysses
Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Arundel
Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Leicester
The Lindsfarne Gospels
The Luttrell Psalter
Magna Carta
The Mercator Atlas of Europe
Mozart's Thematic Catalogue
The Sforza Hours
The Sherborne Missal
Stars of Science
Sultan Baybars' Qur'an
Vesalius' De Humanis Corporis Fabrica
The Wellcome Apocalypse
Robert Willan's On Cutaneous Diseases
WB Yeats Rapallo notebooks
The success of some of these projects has been extraordinary. Launching Alice's Adventures Under Ground online, we had 60,000 visitors in the first five days. When we installed touchscreen versions of Ulysses at the National Library of Ireland they had to install seating at the touchscreens, as visitors were spending so long using them.
The Turning the Pages™ 2.0 Toolkit is the result of 18 months work consulting with the BL and other institutions, as well as working closely with Microsoft to develop an application that will reshape how libraries and museums think about access and interpretation.