I’ve been rebuilding my web site recently, and in testing my new “Gallery” page, which links to some 3D art I put up on DeviantArt several years ago, I found myself browsing through the various images there, and couldn’t resist republishing this bit of fun, which I had forgotten:
What an amazing resource this is, delivered up free to us on our iPads.
The British Library has developed this deceptively simple app in association with BiblioLabs. Assistance was also given by Microsoft, which provided resouces to the Library for the scanning process.
Here the genius is not in the interface, which is fairly pedestrian, but in the concept of providing astonishingly direct access to a thousand books from the Library’s 19th Century collection, exactly reproduced from scans of the original works.
Full high-res scans of 1,000 books would of course eat up way too much storage on the iPad. Part of the genius is the way that you can search for and select works and only then begin a progressive download. Only if you place a work on your “bookshelf” is it retained locally. Read more…
I have been reading my way through all of Connie Willis’ books, having so much enjoyed what I have read so far. She has a real lightness of touch, a great insight into character, and a wonderful sense of humor, which I find very appealing.
Bellwether is quite a slight book by the standards of Willis’ novels such as Doomsday Book and Blackout/All Clear, putting its emphasis on humor and quirkiness rather than deep characterization, but it was nonetheless very entertaining.
