For the last week I\u2019ve been mulling over what I can do to get this electronic bookshelf work started. I\u2019d already planned to do a quick review of the e-paper literature on the net; but in addition to that I started to think that there might be mileage in investigating the use of iBooks and similar apps for the iPad. Clearly there\u2019s a big difference between simulating a bookshelf on an eight foot stretch of wall and representing that bookshelf on a small iPad screen. However, I started to realise that actually it was just a matter of scale and that the basic architecture would probably remain the same for whatever physical size of screen was used. That set me thinking that, although my initial aim was to simulate books on a bookshelf, displaying mementos and photos \u00a0in a virtual cabinet, board or frame are also manifestations of a broader capability \u2013 to make personal things visible and accessible. That was the point I decided to draft the following set of functional components:<\/p>\n
With my thoughts a little clearer, yesterday I spent an hour or so scanning the net for info about the current state of e-paper. I found an excellent 2011 article published in the Journal of the Society for Information Display by J. Heikenfeld et al, entitled, \u2018A critical review of the present and future prospects for electronic paper\u2019. This seemed to suggest that a lot was going on and that there was a lot of potential, but that e-paper, at that time anyway, wasn\u2019t a mainstream product. A search of the current suppliers seemed to verify this. There don\u2019t seem to be many suppliers and specific product info isn\u2019t advertised \u2013 general capabilities are described with invitations to contact the company to discuss requirements. I began to realise that getting my hands on long lengths of e-paper was going to be difficult.<\/p>\n
I then started looking at the many and varied iPad bookshelf\/pinboard apps. The Apple iBooks app seems to be limited to a single representation of book covers in rows on a white background and only for PDFs. Another product, SideBooks, provides a bookshelf representation (in a variety of possible colours\/designs) but, like iBooks, only displays the front covers \u2013 not the spines. It also enables hierarchies to be constructed i.e. an icon of the spines of 6 books represents a whole lower level bookshelf and so on indefinitely. Unfortunately SideBooks can only handle PDF, ZIP, CBZ, RAR and CBR Formats \u2013 so not JPG photos. However it does enable new items to be imported via Dropbox (this is simple and quick) or iTunes. I tried putting several photos into a PDF and importing it into SideBooks and this worked well \u2013 the resulting file sat on the bookshelf with the image of the first photo displayed on the cover. This will be fine for mementos.<\/p>\n
This, then, is where I\u2019m up to. I shall continue to look through the labyrinthine Apple Store to come up with a Bookshelf\/Display Board product that can handle both PDFs AND Photos \u2013 but I\u2019m beginning to think that I might just get on and do this experiment using SideBooks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For the last week I\u2019ve been mulling over what I can do to get this electronic bookshelf work started. I\u2019d already planned to do a quick review of the e-paper literature on the net; but in addition to that I … Continue reading