Turing the Pages 2.0™
The Turning the Pages™ 2.0 Toolkit is the latest version of the award-winning Turning the Pages™ software. It allows users to cost-effectively build their own online libraries, with no technical know-how and in minutes. It offers a compelling 3-dimensional experience, a range of useful tools and the ability to scale to any number of books. Highlights include:
- realistic 3-d books you can pick up and examine at any angle
- zoom as well as magnification
- personal and group note-taking
- integrated discussion forum
- search
- content management system allowing users to create and upload their own books
The feature set we have put into the toolkit has been developed after consultation with library curators, educators, web and collection access specialists, as well as extensive user-testing. The result in an application that appeals to non-traditional audiences who love the 3-d interaction, through to those in education who need access to primary sources, to academics and researchers who need the notetaking and discussion tools to collaborate and work effectively.
The content management system will allow you to log in to your library at any time and create books, add text or audio, check your registered users, take a look at the usage statistics or add metadata. Underpinning your content management system is a fully Dublin Core compliant database. As this is a worldwide standard for library metadata, this should ensure you can migrate your data in or out of the TTP database quickly and easily.
Turning the Pages™ 2.0 comes in two versions - basic and academic. The academic version includes some advanced features such as search and note-taking. Both versions are licensed to clients for a one-off fee and then a yearly hosting and maintenance fee, based on expected levels of web traffic.
If you want to prepare and upload images and text yourself, there need be no other costs, but if you would like us to undertake these tasks, plus any other customisation, then we can quote you on receipt of a brief. If you would also like to run the application on kiosks we can prepare a version that will run on touchscreens.
The toolkit runs as a hosted service - so we host all the files and run the application for you, but visitors to your site still see your web address. This means no set up or maintenance for you, and the guarantee of a robust server infrastructure optimised just for Turning the Pages™. For more on hosting click here.
Turning the Pages™ uses some of the latest Microsoft technologies and therefore requires Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista. As a next-generation application, it benefits from being run on newer computers. To find out more about how we built it, watch Tim Sneath from Microsoft talk about the project here. We plan a Macintosh version later in 2007.
To start creating your online library all you need are some cutout scans of a book. If you want to add text or audio (transcription or commentary for example) you can do that when you create the book, or come back and add it later. For more technical information on this, get in touch with us.