Monday, March 19, 2001

Electronic-Book Technology Makes Rare Volume Accessible to Readers By JESSICA LUDWIG Bethesda, Md. A Curious Herbal, a rare book from the 18th century, would normally be housed in a glass case with only one page set open. But, as a result of a collaboration with the British Library, visitors to the National Library of Medicine here now can leaf through an electronic version of the volume using touch-screen technology. Specialists at the British Library began digitizing select volumes in response to visitor requests to see more of the institution's rare books. Officials at both institutions have been working for three years to bring a rare medical book to the United States. A Curious Herbal was a natural selection since both institutions have editions of the book. To create the virtual volume, the book's pages were scanned and then digitized using Adobe Photoshop. Next, the book's images and frames were compiled using Director 4, a graphics animation program produced by Macromedia. The touch-screen technology allows users to move back and forth between pages. A Curious Herbal is the seventh rare book in the British Library to be digitized for public access. The first book made available through the program was The Lindisfarne Gospels. Joseph Fitzgerald, the chief of graphics at the National Library of Medicine, said the digitized installation of A Curious Herbal was timely because of the growing interest in using herbs and plants for medicinal purposes. He also said the extraordinary life of the book's author, Elizabeth Blackwell, made the volume noteworthy. Ms. Blackwell created the herbal book to raise money for the release of her husband from debtors' prison. An artist and engraver, she made sketches of 40 plants and flowers in the Chelsea Physick Garden in London. She then made engravings of the sketches, printed them, and colored in the 500 plates by hand. The volume was originally published between 1737 and 1739, and fewer than 60 copies now exist. The virtual edition's touch screen adds an invaluable interactive quality to experiencing the book that would not be provided by a CD-ROM version of the book, said Donald A.B. Lindberg, the director of the National Library of Medicine, at Friday's unveiling of the project. "In my view, it's the first innovation that makes it fun to read and look at text pages on a computer screen," he said. The user opens the virtual brownish-red leather volume by dragging a hand or a few fingers across the screen. Tap the screen or drag a finger firmly across, and the pages turn. But the book is sensitive to a "heavy touch" and will stop in the middle of turning a page. David Russon, the deputy chief executive of the British Library, said of demonstrating the project to the Queen of England: "The one great problem we found was that the Queen always wears gloves." The touch screen will not respond to such material and needs the traction created by direct contact with flesh. Two buttons in the lower right corner of the screen allow the user to zoom in on an image or to hear an audio clip relating the medicinal uses of the plant. For example, among the things we learn about St. John's Wort is that when taken with a little wine, it was thought to protect against melancholy and madness. Zooming in on a plate produces a detailed image of the plant in the upper left corner of the screen. A Curious Herbal is a permanent exhibit and will have three demonstration sites in the National Library. Mr. Fitzgerald said that a future addition to the project might be to add links to Internet sites that provide further information on clinical trials of the plants and herbs featured in the book. "It's a marvelous way to disperse knowledge but at the same time protect it," Mr. Fitzgerald said. Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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