May 05 2009
Flipping Good Books
Exploring the Internet Archive
I love old books, especially books of exploration and journeys written in the late-18th, 19th and early-20th centuries. That was a time of expansive thinking, when a person could still homestead out west, or launch a boat into a river and just go without worrying about having a passport or credit card.
The authors of the period wrote with style, evoking vivid pictures of their subject matter. Many books of the time were illustrated with plates of paintings or photographs, and in examining those illustrations, sometimes you see something surprising. Here’s an example, but look carefully at the photo to see some things which might surprise you:
What do you see? A gentleman wearing what appears to be everyday clothing, but he’s also wearing a pith helmet. His bicycle frame is recognizable as similar to the bikes we ride today, but his seems quite large for him. But look in the lower right of the photo and you’ll see another bike. It’s resting on its off-drivetrain side, and check out that saddle—it’s wide in the stern, narrow over the nose, and has a slot down the middle. Who’d a thunk it? Isn’t that a modern innovation? As it happens, it isn’t. This and the photo at the head of this article are from the book by Allan Eric, Following the Tow-Path and Through the Adirondacks Awheel, published in 1898. You might have noticed something else, too. Allan’s bike is outfitted with a bag which fills the triangle and is lashed to the major structural tubes. If you rounded a corner on the bike path and met him going your way, he wouldn’t seem an oddity. What makes this an even more interesting photo is that it was shot by his paddling partner, in fact, the “Junior Partner,” a woman. How do I know all this? Did I pull a book down off the shelf? Nope. I pointed my mouse to the Internet Archive and searched for “bicycle touring.”
The Internet Archive is a wonderful resource. The IA is an internet library, with the mission of offering a permanent storehouse of searchable, downloadable digital references which can be accessed by anyone. It’s icing on the cake that the IA is free. Search their collection for whatever interests you and see what you find. Here’s a screenshot of a page I reached after searching the bicycle holdings in Canadian libraries:
I navigated to a title called Bicycle accessories: 1900. Looked interesting, and I wanted to read it. There are several ways to do just that. With a yellow ellipse in the picture above, I’ve circled the portion of the sidebar which allows you to choose among several ways to read the book. Here’s a better view of the offerings for this book:
Click on the format which you prefer and you’re off. I like the Flip Book (beta) link best. The Flip Book (beta) version of the digitized books at IA are—as the name implies—a trial run. In their own words: The bookreader is still in beta testing. URLs may change in the future, breaking embedded books. This feature is just for testing! Fair enough. Click on the link and you’re taken to a window where the book is displayed with the pages side-by-side. Click on the left or right side page to advance one page. Or use the navigation tools on the page to do it. Or use the left and right arrows on your keyboard. You can advance more than one page at a time by clicking on the far right or left of the stack of pages—a contextual window tells what page you’re pointing to.
The beta versions of the Flip Books at IA let anyone who uses blogspot.com blogs or self-hosted Wordpress blogs to embed the flip books on their site. Thanks IA!
What follows are a few titles which caught my eye. Note that each Flip Book window includes a hotlink which will take you to the IA webpage, where you can find the book arranged with pages side by side, rather than in the scrolling single pages seen here. In the windows below, click on the + or – buttons to increase or decrease the text. On the right upper menu of each window you’ll find up and down arrows which allows you to navigate through the selected book. And you can click on the icon to the upper left in each window to go directly to the IA homepage. Enjoy!
Bicycle Accessories: 1900
Following the Tow-Path and Through the Adirondacks awheel
The Adventures of a Woman Hobo (1917)
The North-West Passage, and The Plans for the Search for Sir John Franklin. A Review
A Thousand Miles in The Rob Roy Canoe on Rivers and Lakes of Europe
