Created by Waldek Węgrzyn at the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice, Poland, “Electrolibrary” is a project that connects a custom made paper book to the computer, so it can be used as an an interface. The book can be browsed as any other regular book but when connected to the computer via USB, by turning pages, you can navigate through the website, getting additional information, quotations, movies and animations appropriate to the currently open page.
The content of the book is Waldek’s diploma thesis discussing phenomenon of a book as an inteface. The text contains number of references to different works, but the major inspiration is the manifesto “The topography of typography” published in 1923 by a graphic designer El Lissitzky which has also influenced the design of the book.
Waldek used teensy development board hidden in the cover and a set of circuits made of conductive paint printed with silk-screen method. This allowed him to detect which page is currently open, and also to add touch-sensitive elements to the illustrations. The book emulates a keyboard and communicates with javascript code on the website – no additional software required.
For now it is only a prototype intended for the presentation (3 existing copies), but he imagines that it could be used as a kind of children’s book, interactive catalogue or anything that makes fun of connecting traditional paper to the computer. The book currently connects via USB cable, but it is also possible to make such a book with Bluetooth or WiFi interface.
The website was created with HTML, CSS, PHP and jQuery (mostly in Adobe Dreamweaver).
