Mīharo Wonder: Digital book with Sebastian Blair

Join New Media Coordinator, Sebastian Blair, as he walks you through the creation of the digital book experience in the Mīharo Wonder exhibition. Discover the highlights, the challenges, and why it was important for this piece to be part of Mīharo Wonder.

Books, books and more books
It will come as no surprise that the Alexander Turnbull Library and the National Library both have a large number of books in their collections. What might not be so obvious, is that many of them have also been digitised.

For their latest exhibition, Mīharo Wonder, the exhibition team were looking for a way to allow visitors to explore some of these books. However, many collection items are very delicate and can't be readily handled. To solve this issue, they turned to the power of technology.

Through a partnership between Panasonic New Zealand and the Te Puna Foundation, the exhibition team were able to create a physical book for visitors to interact with. Panasonic provided a projector which, used with the Alexander Turnbull Library collection, provides visitors with a unique experience.

Tahitian manuscript
The book selected for this exhibition piece is an 1847 watercolour sketchbook, painted in Tahiti. The digitised version is projected onto a blank copy of the sketchbook, allowing visitors to experience the entirety of the book, without risking the integrity of the original.

For this talk, Sebastian will take you through the steps involved with curating this interactive experience, what inspired it, as well as the challenges involved.

About the speaker
Sebastian works for the National Library as the New Media Coordinator. His role sits within the Public Engagement team where he advises on and coordinates technology and its possible uses within the Library. He has a passion for using digital technology to promote new ways to look at the taonga held by the National Library and beyond

Image: Sebastian looking at the digital book in the Mīharo Wonder exhibition. Photo by Mark Beatty.