Hi,

At RERO (the Library Network of Western Switzerland), we have recently developed Multivio:

https://www.multivio.org/

It is an open source, HTML/JavaScript/CSS-based, document viewer. This has been done in the framework of e-lib.ch, a national programme aimed at developing the "Swiss electronic library": http://e-lib.ch/en/

Here are some key aspects of Multivio that might be of relevance to the current discussion:

- it supports multi-file documents (it parses MARC-XML, Dublin Core, MODS or METS records containing several URLs);

- it supports several file formats, namely PDF and images (including TIFF, but not yet JPEG2000), and should support audio and video in the coming months; you can even mix several formats in the same multi-file document;

- it displays the document structure (table of contents) if it has one;

- it is very fast, lightweight (handles very large PDFs with limited bandwidth) and nice to use;

- it allows textual search (even multi-file) and text selection;

- it is an open source (GPLv2) software module that can be integrated into any institutional repository or digital library;

Note that Multivio does not yet take full advantage of touch interfaces. It works fine on the iPad but should still be optimized in that sense.

You can try it with any document available in the web either from the demo page or using a constructed URL:

http://demo.multivio.org/
http://demo.multivio.org/client/en/#get&url=<DOCUMENT_OR_FILE_URL_HERE>

Please note that the first time the document is accessed it must be copied from its original location into Multivio's cache via http, which can take some time, depending on file size. This step is not required if Multivio is installed alongside the contents, which is usually the case when it is applied to a document server or digital library. You can see it in action in RERO DOC, the digital library of RERO:

http://doc.rero.ch/

Eric: here's the link for displaying your PDF with Multivio:

http://demo.multivio.org/client/en/#get&url=http://dh.crc.nd.edu/sandbox/cyl/corpus/canarybird00schm.pdf

Ultimately, you could even display your whole catalog at once with Multivio, in a hierarchical fashion, if you created a METS file containing all the titles. If you're interested in this possibility you may take a look at the following document, for which Multivio presents a set of 146 genealogies, each composed of 2-3 PDF files:

http://demo.multivio.org/client/en/#get&url=http://doc.rero.ch/mets/genealogies_fribourgeoises_en.xml
http://doc.rero.ch/collection/GENEALOGIES_FAMILLES_FRIBOURGEOISES_cs?ln=en

Feel free to contact us for any question or comment at [log in to unmask]

Best regards,

Miguel Moreira

--
RERO - Réseau des bibliothèques de Suisse occidentale
av. de la Gare 45
CH-1920 Martigny, Suisse
http://www.rero.ch/
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On 3 oct. 2011, at 15:58, Eric Lease Morgan wrote:

> Are any of you able to open the following URL with an Android-based tablet device:
> 
> http://dh.crc.nd.edu/sandbox/cyl/corpus/canarybird00schm.pdf
> 
> I have harvested about 60 PDF documents from the Internet Archive, and I created a rudimentary tablet-based interface to the collection here:
> 
> http://dh.crc.nd.edu/sandbox/cyl/catalog/
> 
> Using my desktop machine I am able to download and view the PDF documents found in the "catalog", but I am unable to view them on my iPad nor my iPhone. Grrrr… I've tried many different PDF viewers on my iPad and iPhone, all to no avail.
> 
> I'm wondering whether or not this is a iOS thing or if there is something wrong with my PDF files.
> 
> Please tell me what your experience is.
> 
> -- 
> Eric Morgan
> University of Notre Dame