The British Library and The Darlington Digital Library.

Both, the British Library and the Darlington Digital Library have available some of their books online. In this post I am going to write a brief review explaining their structure and design, the contect (genre and format)  and who are the people in charge of them.

Digital Library

Digital Library logo

The British Library is sitted at 96 Euston Rd, London. Nevertheless we can have access to eight collections without moving from our home. The collections available are: Henry VIII, Taking liberties, Sacred, turn the pages, historical text, Magna Carta, Maps and views and Black Europeans . Appart form them we can find another two possibilities: enjoying online exhibitions and taking some highlight tour. The pages of the books are shown as a picture with no possibility of highlihting anything, however it is important to point out the quality of the photos.

The Darlington Digital Library defines itself as:

The Darlington Digital Library was created from the first major collection of books, manuscripts, atlases, and maps donated to the University of Pittsburgh. Most of the credit for assembling the Darlington Collection rightly goes to William M. Darlington, an attorney by profession who was born in Pittsburgh in 1815.

In it we can find atlases, books, broadsides, images, manuscripts and maps. before entering one of each parts we are offered a brief exposition of what are we going to find. Once you have decided which book you want to retrieve yo are offeered a brief description of it and a list of the pages available. As well as with the British Library, just photos are offered but in high quallity.

References:

Main differences between ebooks and traditional books.

Everybody can see the differences between the ebook and the traditonal book. Nevertheless there is more than meets the eye and in this short post I am going to introduce the differences beetween them.

  • Text can be searched automatically and be linked to other books using cross-referenced hyperlinks.
  • E-books allow non-permanent annotation and highligting
  • Font and its size can be adapted to the reader.
  • Animated images or multimedia clips to be embedded may be allowed.
  • An e-book can automatically open at the last read page.
  • Text-to-speech software can be used to read the text. Nevertheless, the voice will be auto-generated, so the quality may be  worse than audiobooks.
  • It is easier for authors to self-publish e-books.
  • A free e-book can stimulate the sales of the printed version.
Ebook vs Book

Ebook vs Book

References

Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee

Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee (born 8 June 1955), is a British engineer and computer scientist and MIT professor credited with inventing the World Wide Web. He inherited his parents’ interest in computer technology. In 1976 he set about building his own computer. He used tools that could be found in the house.

Tim took up employment with Plessey Telecommunications Ltd, a major UK Telecom equipment manufacturer. Working on bar code technology and message systems helped further whet his appetite for computer systems.

He is the Director of the World Wide Web Consortium, a Web standards organization founded in 1994 which develops interoperable technologies (specifications, guidelines, software, and tools) to lead the Web to its full potential. He is co-Director of the Web Science Research Initiative (WSRI), started in 2006 in order to help create the first multidisciplinary research body to examine the World Wide Web and offer the practical solutions needed to help guide its future use and design. He is also a Director of the World Wide Web Foundation, started in 2008 to fund and coordinate efforts to further the potential of the Web to benefit humanity.

Since 2005 he has recieved the following awards:

2005:

  • Common Wealth Award for Distinguished Service for Mass Communications
  • Die Quadriga Award
  • Financial Times Lifetime Achievement Award
  • 2006:
  • President’s Medal, the Institute of Physics

2007:

  • Awarded the Order of Merit by H.M. the Queen
  • Charles Stark Draper Prize, National Academy of Engineering
  • Lovelace Medal, British Computer Society
  • D&AD President’s Award for Innovation and Creativity
  • MITX (Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange) Leadership Award
  • Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Engineering

2008:

  • BITC Award for Excellence
  • IEEE/RSE Wolfson James Clerk Maxwell Award
  • Fellow, IEEE
  • Pathfinder Award, Harvard Kennedy School of Government

2009:

  • Foreign Associate, National Academy of Sciences
  • Webby Awards Lifetime Achievement Award
Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee

Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee

 

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