Research Projects
The Unique Codex Digitization Project: Treasuring the Materiality of Books in Fourth-Wave Digital Humanities
The way that standard books are digitized for online collections does not account for materiality, interactivity, or dimensionality, so inevitably nonstandard books are left out of massive digitization efforts. This erasure perpetuates a homogenous canon of what books are valued and leaves these inaccessible books under-researched. This project proposes solutions to make digital versions of nonstandard book objects like touch-and-feel books, pop-up books, and books embellished with precious metals available to the public. This project documents how hands-on making of book prototypes can enhance appreciation of the material book form, while also avoiding copyright issues. Furthermore, three experimental processes are documented in alternative forms of digitization, including an interactive touchscreen website, a 4D volumetric capture, and a 3D printed object. Each prototype requires design knowledge to decide which aspects of the book can be replicated virtually and which aspects cannot: the interactive touchscreen website privileges haptic learning in touch-and-feel books; the volumetric capture of a pop-up book can be manipulated in a 3D environment as well as viewed over time like a video; and the 3D printed treasure binding can replicate the dimensionality of the embellishments. This project highlights the value of learning by making and situates this material/digital project in the fourth wave of digital humanities.
Adaptation from Touch-N-Feel to Touchscreens
In this chapter, I introduce the reader to the creative histories and educational potentials of touch-and-feel books. I then discuss how creators are adapting print books to mobile applications that use the functions of a touchscreen device in a playful way. I discuss the benefits of making children’s books in both my pedagogy and my research. Then, I provide documentation on the steps I took to create my own touch-and-feel book, explaining my design decisions. I outline my process of creating an interactive touchscreen book experience, and how the digital book reflects or is modified from the print book. Finally, I discuss the benefits of the print and digital versions coexisting.
Welcome to the Swamp
An interactive book with tactile football, pompoms, goal post, and field; dry erase marker and board; paper circuit and miniature book; thermochromic beakers; and bell with sound.
Welcome to the Swamp Touchscreen
Read, interact, and play with the touchscreen adaptation of Welcome to the Swamp.
ABCD: Accessible Books via Critical Digitization
This chapter starts with an introduction of how books are currently being mass digitized and proposes critical digitization to create low-cost, high-impact digitization projects. I then provide a media history of interactive/movable books, including pull-tabs, pop-ups, and other forms of paper engineering. I reflect on my efforts to digitize historical movable artifacts from the University of Florida’s Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature. I also elaborate on how cultural heritage institutions are using technology to provide access to their artifacts. I then outline the process I designed to create a complex pop-up book. I follow this process with a discussion of my experimental workflow using virtual reality technologies to create a 4D volumetric capture of the pop-up book I made and share how to view and interact online or in virtual or augmented reality. Finally, I address the mutual benefits of digital humanists collaborating with cultural heritage institutions.
Pop-Up Guide to UF
A dummy book of a 180° fold pop-up guide to UF campus landmarks: Thomas Hall, Century Tower, Stadium, Baughman Center, Bat House, and Butterfly Rainforest.
Pop-Up UF/ Digitization
View the collection of volumetric captures of Pop-Up UF at Sketchfab.
Re(p)lic(a)
This chapter begins with a look at how cultural heritage institutions specifically use 3D virtual and printed models to enhance their collections. I then provide a media history of a specific rare book artifact, the treasure binding, to emphasize its importance in book history and the problems of its inaccessibility for research. I next reflect on my experience creating a 3D virtual and printed model of a treasure binding in the Walters Art Museum. I then outline the process I created to make my own treasure bound book with velvet, silver, and crystals. The next section outlines the modes I test and the ultimate results in using photogrammetry to create my own 3D virtual and printed models. This chapter concludes with a discussion of the value of blending the past (book history) with the future (digital humanities).
Treasure F Book
Read the inside of the 2019-2020 Treasure F Book. View the 3D model of the Treasure Binding F Book.
Digitizing Interactive Books
This long-term project aims to create a permanent online exhibit of digitizations of interactive books in the Baldwin Library of Historical Children's Literature in the Department of Special Collections at the University of Florida's George A. Smathers Libraries. The project involves creating icons for designated categories of interactive books, creating 3D scans, videos, and animated GIFs of the movable aspects of the book, and providing as much metadata as possible. Many thanks to Suzan Alteri, Curator of the Baldwin, for all her help taking this project from concept to reality.
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Dissolving Scene
Dissolving scenes have pull tabs and slats that reveal a different scene.
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Flap
Flaps are manually manipulated to reveal what's under the flap.
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Paper Doll
Paper dolls are perforated paper cutout shapes that can move around the scene.
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Pop Up
Pop Up books have elements that pop off the page when the spread is opened. Read More
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Pull tab
Pull tabs move elements around the page, either by pulling up/down, left/right, or out/in.
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Tunnel
Books with tunnels have cutouts that reveal the pages behind them to create one master scene.
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Volvelle
Volvelles are usually circular, spinnable elements using a brad in the center.
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Folly is an Endless Maze
Play Folly is an Endless Maze on your desktop browser. This work was made in collaboration with Norma Aceves, Pranav Achanta, Emily Brooks, Sampath Palla, and Jacob Rabb.