If you enjoy the New York Times reader, a Windows Presentation Foundation application, you are really, really going to enjoy this new WPF application  from the British Library - Turning the Pages 2.0. It'll run natively in Vista on the browser if your computer is premium ready. If you have XP, you'll need to install the application.

I just started playing with it and it is an awesome way to look at some ancient and historical books. Bill Gates demoed Turning the Pages 2.0 yesterday with his personal collection of Leonardo Di Vinci's notebook Codex Leicester. His collection is offered in Turning the Pages 2.0 as well as the Codex Arundel.

From PCPro.uk:

Researchers, academics, students and historians will soon have access to some of the most ancient and fragile historical documents and books hidden away in Britain's biggest and most important library.

The British Library has demonstrated a digital book application called Turning the Pages 2.0, that it has developed to run on Windows Vista, taking advantage of the enhanced 3D graphics capabilities of the new operating system.

The application can provide readers with a similar experience to reading a traditional and often fragile book. The book application contains exact scans of historical books and documents such as the Magna Carta.

'For us the real bonus is the simplification of the digitisation and the presentation of the books. We can now accelerate our plans to offer digital access to our books - it is a major step forward for the British Library and it is a real opportunity to transform the way people interact with historical material.' said Lynne Brindley, chief executive of the British Library speaking to IT PRO at the UK launch of Windows Vista and Office.

Thanks for the link, Loren.