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Turn the pages of ICAEW's collection of rare books

Author: ICAEW Library and Information Service

Published: 03 Jan 2017

A view of an ICAEW rare book through the Turning The Pages interactive tool
A view of an ICAEW rare book through the Turning The Pages interactive tool
Turning the Pages is an award-winning interactive tool developed by the British Library that allows us to show you some of the rarest books in our collection in digitised form.

Using the interactive tool you can explore our digitised books with greater freedom than would ever be possible with the fragile originals. You can pull the books apart, rotate the pages or zoom in.

You can access the complete online Turning the pages library or jump into any of the digitised titles:

  • Summa de arithmetica
    Luca Pacioli, 1494
    The Particularis de computis et scripturis section of this work on mathematics contains the first description of double-entry bookkeeping in a printed book.
  • Divina proportione
    Luca Pacioli, 1509
    This work on geometry and the ‘divine proportion’ was illustrated by Leonardo da Vinci, Pacioli’s friend and collaborator.
  • The maner and fourme how to kepe a perfecte reconying
    James Peele, 1553
    The first extant original work on accounting in English.
  • Nieuwe instructie
    Jan Ympyn Christoffels, 1543.
    This Dutch work on bookkeeping was one of the most influential works of the age and was translated into French and English soon after publication.

Help and support

The current version of the 'Turning The Pages' system supports Internet Explorer 9+, Safari Desktop, Safari Mobile, Firefox 11+, Google Chrome 14+, Opera 11+ and Android Mobile 2.1+.

Once you have loaded a title you can manipulate your view by clicking on the hand icon. The options available are:

Index view. This view splits the book into individual pages, allowing you to jump straight into a page of your choosing.

Book view. This view binds the pages back into a book, allowing you to leaf through the book by turning the pages.

Rotate. This option allows you to rotate the book by 90 degree increments.

Zoom in/out. This option allows you to zoom in or out of the scanned images.

Move. Using this option will allow you to move the digitised book around your virtual desktop. Once you have selected this option click on the book and drag it to the position you want.

Historical Accounting Literature

The ICAEW collection of historical accounting literature currently comprises over 4,000 volumes and includes works published from the 15th century to the early 20th century. The collection includes books and journals in a variety of languages.

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