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User Manual
Developed by Emory University's Center for Digital Scholarship, Readux is a new platform for reading and annotating digitized texts. A research, teaching, and publishing tool, Readux foregrounds the visual appearance of digitized works, retaining each page's original format, design, and typography. Readux pairs the book's appearance with its textual content, drawing on optical character recognition (OCR) to transparently overlay a page's text on its image. Readux offers a rich browsing interface for these digitized works, permits multimedia annotation of text and image, and supports export of interactive digital editions pairing a digitized work's pages with a user's annotations. Readux draws on the international image interoperability framework (IIIF) to support the organization of collections of digitized works hosted by diverse institutions in a single, unified point of access. Through these features Readux supports an unprecedented level of engagement with the visual and textual content of digitized texts.
- People who like books: For anyone interested in browsing, researching, teaching, and publishing with digitized books, Readux offers an interface that enables deep and wide ranging forms of engagement. Readux's browsing interface makes paging through or searching digitized books easy. The platform's annotation tool enables researchers to take notes on books of interest. Teachers can also invite students to annotate works in Readux and export their additions to share with instructors. Anyone can use Readux's export feature to publish a version of a book to the web featuring their annotations.
- Collection stewards, scholars, and archivists: Librarians and archivists responsible for stewarding texts with visual interest or scholars of such materials can use Readux to organize and share collections of digitized works. Collection stewards can use Readux to encourage public and scholarly engagement with marquee collections of printed works and can collaborate to create collections of related works from multiple institutions. Scholars can use Readux to organize, teach with, and encourage further research with thematic collections of materials at their home institution and/or artchives around the world.
- Libraries, archives, and publishers: Libraries and archives establish a Readux site as a platform to facilitate engagement with their digitized works, organizing collections representing key archival strengths, faculty members' research and teaching interests, or any other organizational scheme. Pubishers can use Readux to host digital scholarly editions and thematic research collections. Working with sys admins, editors and archivists at such institutions can leverage Readux's unique functionality to enable deep engagement with scholarly editions and thematic research collections.
Readux offers users two ways to browse digitized works: collections, and volumes.
- Collections in Readux are selections of digitized books organized around a theme by site administrators. Readux sites can include many, few, or even no collections, and volumes can feature in more than one collection.
- From the home page of a Readux site, users can access collections in two ways.
- By clicking on a "featured collection"—a collection the site's administrators have chosen to emphasize—at the top of the site's right-hand column.
- By clicking on the "Collections" link in the site's navigation menu at the top of the page.
- The "Collections" page
- Clicking on the collections link takes users to a page featuring all of the site's collections. Each collection has a title and an image representative of its contents.
- The page also details how many volumes are in each collection.
- Click on the entry for a collection to visit the landing page for that collection and browse the volumes it contains.
- Browsing Collections
- Clicking on a featured collection on the home page, or a collection on the collections page takes a user to the landing page for that collection, where a user can learn more about the collection and browse its contents.
- Each collection page includes general information about the collection including a title, image, and short description describing the collection.
- Each collection page also includes information about each volume the collection contains: an image, the title of the volume, and publication information such as the author, publication date, publisher, and city, and when the volume was added to Readux.
- Users can sort the list of the volumes by their titles, author, date published, or date added to Readux by clicking on the term to the right of the "Sort by:" text above the list of volumes. Clicking on the upward or downward facing arrows at the top right of the list of volumes orders the list in ascending or descending order.
- Volumes in Readux represent individual digitized works. A Readux site can include any number of volumes from one or more archives. Volumes can be included in one or more collections, or no collection at all.
- There are multiple ways to access volumes.
- From the home page of Readux users can click on a featured volume in the right column beneath featured collections.
- From the home page users can also click on the "Volumes" link in thenavigation menu at the top of the page.
- Users can also access volumes by clicking on the entry for a volume in the list on a collection landing page in which the volume is included.
- Browsing volumes
- Clicking on a volume brings up a landing page for the volume that provides information about the digitized work it represents and enables browsing and annotation.
- Breadcrumbs at the top of the page offer links to the home page and, if the volume was accessed through a collection, the collections page and landing page for the collection in which the volume was accessed.
- The volume's title appears beneath this and, under it, an interface for browsing the volume's pages.
- To the right of the browsing interface is basic information about the volumes, links to take actions relating the volumes, and URLs for files and permanent links related to the volume.
- --Logging into Readux unlocks additional functionality. With a user account you gain access to the full set of Readux functions, including annotation and export.
- In addition to browsing and reading volumes with deep zoom, with an account you can annotate the volumes. You can add notes to the images and/or text on each page of a volume. For more details on how to annotate see <add link to below with how to annotate>.
- Also, with a user account you can export your annotations and volumes that you annotate in multiple formats. You will be able to preserve your annotations in a IIIF bundle or share them by means of a Jekyll website. Readux allows you to either download the Jekyll website (for use on any hosting platform of your choice) or to export directly to a free GitHub pages website (with an authorized GitHub account). For more details see <add link to below with how to export>.
- --Start by clicking on the Login icon in the top right corner.
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- Clicking on Login will direct you to the Sign In page, which lists your login options.
- You can log into Readux using a variety of third-party authorized accounts (currently Facebook, GitHub, Google/Gmail, and Twitter). These will be listed once you click Login, and you can choose your preferred third-party account. Readux uses your third-party account id only to secure your Readux experience. Readux gains access to your basic profile information (username and email address), but does not otherwise use your account. The security token provided by your account secures your Readux login.
- Click on your preferred third-party account and log in through its provided menu.
- In Readux Beta 2.0 logging in with Github has the added benefit of allowing direct export of annotated Readux editions to a Github Pages hosted Jekyll website on your account. If you log in with another third party account, you will need to download the Jekyll site and separately upload it to Github (or another hosting platform).
- --Logging into your account the first time will redirect you to the Sign Up page
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- The E-mail and Username fields will already be populated by your account information, but you can change them.
- The Username field will be your login in the future (through the Login button and third-party link on the Sign up page).
- The e-mail address that you enter in the E-mail field or that was pre-populated from your third-party account will get the confirmation link for your sign up and confirmation e-mails if you export editions. You will be able to change your e-mail address at any time later.
- The "User Name to associate with Annotations" field is a field with the name that you would want displayed as a signature on your annotations in Readux. This could be a full name, initials, last name, etc. This name can also be changed later.
- Finally, you need to agree to the Readux privacy statement and Terms of Use.
- Once you click Sign Up, you will need to confirm your account by clicking a confirmation link that will be sent to the e-mail address associated with your account (the e-mail address in the E-mail field). The confirmation e-mail will say the following:
- The E-mail and Username fields will already be populated by your account information, but you can change them.
Hello from Readux!
You're receiving this e-mail because user _**your username**_ has given yours as an e-mail address to connect their account.
To confirm this is correct, go to _**link**_.
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- If you do not see this e-mail, please check your SPAM folder!
- The link will take you to a page within Readux asking you to click a "confirm" button.
- Once you confirm your e-mail address, your account is complete! You now have the ability to annotated and export editions!
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- --Once logged in you can click on the "My Account" button at any time.
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- This button will you direct you to your "My Account" page.
- From the "My Account" page you can change your "User Name to associate with Annotations" through the "My Profile" button or your E-mail address through the "My Email" button.
- --If you are not logged in, you will only see the arrow under annotation tools. Log in for the full set of tools.
- --In Readux you can browse the volumes and collections <add link to What are collections and What are volumes above> curated on your Readux instance.
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- You can sort a Collection page, or the All Volumes page, ascending or descending, by Title, Author, Date Published, or Date Added.
- To view and browse and individual volume, click on the thumbnail image or the title of the volume.
- --Each volume contains two primary views, the individual page "image view" and the gallery "thumbnails view". You can toggle between them using the view tooltip.
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- The gallery thumbnail view allows you to browse all the pages of the volume in small thumbnails to find the section you want. Click on an individual thumbnail to go to that page in the image view.
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- The image view shows an individual page, as well as a row of thumbnails at the bottom of the surrounding pages.
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- From this view you can annotate the volume <link to annotate> or deep zoom on the image <link to deep zoom>.
- You can toggle the row of thumbnails at the bottom by clicking on the three white dots in the center above the row. Clicking on the dots will hide this panel, providing more viewing space for the page, and clicking on them again will make it reappear.
- From the image view you can expand to full screen using the full screen window tooltip. Additional functions, such as zoom and annotation, are available in the full screen view.
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- From full screen you can return to the regular image view by clicking on the full screen window tooltip again, or by hitting the 'esc' key.
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- --On the image view (in regular or full screen mode), you can deep zoom on the page image. Hover on the portion of the page to which you want to zoom, and scroll with your mouse wheel to zoom in.
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- You can also click the plus and minus buttons and directional arrows to navigate in deep zoom. Click the plus button to zoom in, and the directional arrows to navigate around the page image.
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- The 'home' icon in the center of the directional arrows will reset the page zoom out to the full page for you.
- You can annotate when fully zoomed on a page image. This allows you to draw tighter annotation shapes around details in complicated pages. These annotations then appear small and precise when zoomed out.
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- --When you are browsing a volume, whether in gallery thumbnail or image view, you will see a side bar on the right side of the page. This side bar includes important metadata, as well as additional functions for your Readux experiences. The side bar is split up into four sections: search this volume, basic information, actions, and urls:
- "Search this volume":
- The search bar appears at the top of the right side-panel.
- You can click on the search bar and type in a word or multiple words to search in the text.
- "Search this volume":
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- Keep in mind that the text for these volumes that you are searching comes from OCR. That means that in some cases there may be spelling errors, and the search will not recognize alternate spellings.
- Search will show you the number of results per page (listed as "Canvas", as pages searched will include all canvases listed in the manifest, including the covers and other non-numbered pages), ordered by canvas order (page number). In a second tab it will show results in your own annotations, ordered by relevance.
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- Basic Information:
- The next section down in the right sidebar is the "Basic Information" section. This section includes the metadata about the volume being browsed.
- Basic Information:
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- If you have already created annotations on this volume, the top element under "Basic Information" will show the number of Annotations on the entire manifest (that you have personally created) and the number of Annotations on the page (that you have personally created).
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- Then the metadata section includes the Author(s) of the volume, the Publication Date, the Collection(s) to which the volume has been assigned within Readux, the Publisher of the volume, and a summary field that includes descriptive information.
- Actions:
- The third section on the right sidebar is the Actions section, which includes actions that you can take to further explore the book.
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- From this section you can choose links that take you to more resources.
- First, you can view the PDF of the volume that you are browsing.
- Second, you can export a citation in RIS format. Major reference/citation manager applications, like Zotero, Citavi, Mendeley, and EndNote can export and import citations in this format.
- Then, only if you have created personal annotations, you will see an "Export Annotations" button that will take you to another page from which you can export a IIIF bundle, or Jekyll site <link to export information>.
- Finally, you will see a "Send to Voyant" button, which creates a plain text corpus from the volume's OCR data and exports it directly to Voyant-tools, a web-based text analysis and reading environment, through which you can explore themes in the text.
- URLs:
- The final section in the right sidebar is the "URLs" section, where you will find stable URLs that you can use for referencing sections of the volume, or linking back to them. The links will update as you navigate the volume, and all are equiped with a "Copy" button that you can use to copy the link quickly for reference.
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- The first link takes you to the IIIF manifest of the volume that you are browsing.
- The second link takes you to the collection manifest for the collection in which this volume is placed on Readux.
- The third link is the stable volume URL for the full volume that you are browsing.
- The fourth link is the stable URL for the canvas manifest data related to the page which you are viewing.
- Finally, the last link is the stable page URL for the page you are viewing.
- The fourth and final links will only show when you are in Image/Page view, and will not show when you are in the Gallery/Thumbnail view of the whole volume.
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To annotate volumes in Readux, you need to be logged in. Otherwise, you will only have access to the pointer tooltip in the upper left corner of the viewer:
[image for tool tip without login]
Once logged in, users can see the full range of annotation tooltips:
[image for all tool tips]
To perform an annotation, select the appropriate tooltip and then click and drag on the image to select either a region of the page or the text. Readux offers a range of tooltips for annotating a page region: rectangle, circle, freeform, polygon and point selectors. At the time of this writing, there is bug that causes all shape selectors to save as rectangles some of the time but this should be resolved in a future release.
Selecting text requires use of the OCR (optical character recognition) tooltip: [image for OCR tooltip] After clicking on the tooltip, you can click and drag across the text to access the text data as it is overlaid on top of the page image. If you decide to cancel a selection, you may notice the text is still selected and you may be unable to select new text. To resolve this, simply click anywhere outside the viewer, re-select the OCR tooltip and begin annotating once more.
Once a page region or text portion is selected, an annotation window will appear. The annotation window supports rich text formatting as well as multimedia annotations.
[image for annotation window]
You can embed an image or a video by clicking on the appropriate icon in the annotation window and supply a link to where the image or video is served from. Readux does not enable upload of images so you will need ensure your content is hosted somewhere that can be accessed via link.
A future release of Readux will enable the use of tags attached to annotations.
Another future feature of Readux is the ability to add embed links to related pages in a volume to an annotation. A user will be able to perform a full-text search on the volume and select a relevant page to link to. The annotation will then contain a shortened link to that page.
Readux is designed to make it easy to take your annotations with you. After making annotations, you will need to refresh your browser before you can export. Following a refresh, click on the "Export annotations" button in the left side panel under "Actions."
Readux offers three forms of export:
- IIIF bundle for preservation
- Jekyll bundle for personal hosting
- GitHub reposistory with a Jekyll site
The IIIF bundle is zip file containing the a series of data files that represent the volume. It includes a IIIF manifest for the digitized book and an annotation list for each page that includes both the encoded text of the book and annotations created by the user who created this export. This bundle can be used to archive the recognized text and annotations for preservation and future access.
The Jekyll bundle for personal hosting is a zip file containing a complete website for the volume that is powered by the Jekyll web framework. Jekyll is a static site generator that uses the Ruby programming language to produce web pages with fixed content. The bundle is designed for deployment to a server of your choice but you can easily host it for free on GitHub by selecting the third option "Publish Jekyll site on GitHub."
Publishing directly to Github requires that you are logged in using a GitHub account. A future release of Readux will enable users to link their GitHub accounts to other social media logins but as of now, you must use GitHub to sign in if you want to export an annotated edition directly to GitHub.
After the export processes completes, a page will appear with two links. The first is the to the GitHub repository where all the code is stored. The second is link to your newly generated website.
[image for links after export]
Exported volumes are complete websites all of the volume's pages and annotations. They use a left-side drawer for navigation:
[image of readux exported site]
To export a volume to GitHub, you simply need to provide a name for the code repository. This name should be unique among the repositories under your account, otherwise you will encounter an error when trying to export. You can find a list under the "Repositories" tab on your Github profile page:
[image for github repos]
You can easily edit the content of your exported site and after a brief period of time (typically 1-5 minutes), you will see the updated changes on your published site.