Digital Library Center Blog | UF

From: UF Libraries’ News, Events, and Updates

Students (graduate or undergraduate) making books in book arts and/or fine arts programs across the United States are invited to participate in ARTBOUND by submitting work to a juried artists’ book exhibition and permanent collection at The University of Florida George A. Smathers Libraries!

Entrants are to submit handmade, artists’ books printed in edition. Books printed with letterpress, intaglio, inkjet, and/or screenprint techniques will be considered. We will also consider one-of-a-kind handmade books created in other mediums. We are looking for high quality, original work.

Click HERE to download PDF entry form for ARTBOUND.

I’ve been looking at different tools to allow users to flip through books, in the pretty and easy style of Flash flip books like this one and this one. I made both of these in Flash (editing a template that was freely available online from here), but I’m not a good enough Flash translator to make this do what I’d like it to. I’d like the files to auto-resize to a maximum fixed width to make it easier to automate nice looking versions of the flipbooks. Also, I’d like a simplified version of the files so that I can easily add special components for books that need it, like the Topsys & Turvys book, which needs to be able to be flipped upside-down and back again. Even more than the other options, I’d like to know how to make this happen in OpenLaszlo so I can simultaneously create SWF files for compression and DHTML for open standards for all they bring for preservation and more. The samples are really pretty, but if anyone has suggestions on how I can make them better or the process of making them better, I’d appreciate the help!

The Digital Library has been experimenting with pop-up and movable books, in part to abstract methods for working with movables into optimum ways for representing books as textual objects. One of the projects that came of the work with pop-ups is this version of a Cinderella Panoramic Book.

We’re also looking at a Flash page flipper for some of the scrapbooks and other flip-like books. We’ll be working to create files and then reconstruct the Flash page-flipping in Open Laszlo (so we can migrate it forward in DHTML and in Flash as the versions change).

One of the more interesting new Web 2.0-style mashups are library and museum partnerships. Both have large collections that need to be interconnected and digitized for easier and expanded access. However, libraries have traditionally focused on information access and museums on exhibit-access with the display significant to the materials. As more special collections go online and more information in general, display and access are both becoming more important for libraries and museums. The image above is a shot from a SketchUp file of Gallery B in the Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida. This is just one small work-in-progress, but it’s an artifact of a much larger process and it’s also really neat to explore the inside of a museum from outside the museum.

We also have these files for a virtual exhibit using the Special Collections Exhibit Area for an exhibit on the Art of Letterpress. Hopefully we’ll soon be adding more contextual materials on exhibits and exhibit design, as well as more exhibits themselves.

I’m obviously behind in my fan-reading of all things Google because I just noticed that they have Walter Crane’s Line and Form online (and I was planning to scan it next week when I noticed I couldn’t find it online to view or purchase easily). They don’t seem to have the cover of it, either that or they’re choosing not to show it in their cover browse view. At any rate, it’s wonderful that they have this online solving the issue of access to this important work for art, design, book history, and so many other fields.