Realistic books: a bizarre homage to an obsolete medium?

: For many readers, handling a physical book is an enjoyably exquisite part of the information seeking process. Many physical characteristics of a book—its size, heft, the patina of use on its pages and so on—communicate ambient qualities of the document it represents. In contrast, the experience of accessing and exploring digital library documents is dull. The emphasis is utilitarian; technophile rather than bibliophile. We have extended the page-turning algorithm we reported at last year's JCDL into a scaleable, systematic approach that allows users to view and interact with realistic visualizations of any textual-based document in a Greenstone collection. Here, we further motivate the approach, illustrate the system in use, discuss the system architecture and present a user evaluation. Our work leads us to believe that far from being a whimsical gimmick, physical book models can usefully complement conventional document viewers and increase the perceived value of a digital ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: JCDL
• Authors: Yi-Chun Chu, David Bainbridge, Matt Jones, Ian H. Witten
• Keywords: Digital Library, JCDL 2004, Many Physical Characteristics, Physical Book