While a new, more architecturally sound, more scalable version of our publishing prototype is being developed, the one that we demonstrated at the Digital Publishing Workshop in April is no longer available to be viewed. It is good news for the LCRM Project that we have received some inquiries about it. If you are curious to see similar functionality that allows commenting on books, you might take a look at the following:
–Django Book, which provides some of the technical framework for our future offering
http://www.djangobook.com/en/2.0/
–Yale Books Unbound, in partnership with the Institute for the Future of the Book
http://yupnet.org/home/
There are other experiments online with annotating books, but these are two of my favorites.
What appears to be different about the LCRM Project/UNC Press plans in comparison to other experiments with annotation is our emphasis on links to primary and secondary sources, including primary sources that might be provided by the author and digitized by the UNC Library or elsewhere for this purpose.
In other words, sometimes when an author approaches UNC Press with a completed book manuscript, he or she also has in hand a collection of primary sources that informed the book narrative. Sometimes the author will ask the Press, “Do you want any of these oral history tapes and document files?” Notwithstanding the rights issues and technological challenges, we would like to be able to say “Yes.” With the UNC Library fast becoming a major digitization center, there is the possibility of (1) ingesting the pieces that do not reside elsewhere into the Library as a collection; (2) making them available for viewing online; and (3) linking from the online book to the digital collection. Continue reading ‘Annotating Books Online’