The National Library of Medicine’s new service called “Turning the Pages” has made it possible to virtually flip through six treasured 16th century books from the National Library of Medicine’s collection.  Developed by the British Library, Turning the Pages, was created for visitors to touch and turn the pages of virtual books displayed on a touch screen monitor in an intuitive manner. The National Library of Medicine became the first US site for Turning the Pages in 2001, converting books from their own historic collection in the biomedical sciences to this format. The National Library of Medicine has now made this service available to everyone with online selections such as Johannes de Ketham’s Fasiculo de Medicina, Robert Hooke’s Micrographia, and the newest selection Hieronymus Brunschwig’s Liber de Arte Distillandi. Not only can you flip through the books page by page with their interactive interface but, you can also hear audio clips about the history of the book and download or print high resolution images of the pages.

If you’d like to learn more about the technology behind the Turning the Pages visit their website or get started Turning the Pages of these beautiful texts.