For the Birds?

NMSG has built its reputation on being at the technological forefront in publishing, which now includes EPUBs, or electronic versions of print books for various reader formats. Our work was recently recognized by InDesign Magazine in an article about fine art EPUBs titled "Galleries to Go" (issue 71).

Working with Abbeville Press, the award-winning New York publishing house specializing in fine art and illustrated books, NMSG created the enhanced digital edition of the authoritative resource for birdwatchers, Audubon's Birds of America. The original print version of the book has been widely acknowledged as a masterpiece in both the art and natural science fields for its stunning reproductions of John James Audubon's original engravings of birds.

What makes the digital edition of this comprehensive work unique and so remarkable are the extra interactive features packed into the reflowable EPUB format along with the 435 Audubon engravings reproduced in it. Tapping the icons in the table of contents takes you to a screen showing hyperlinked thumbnail images of the birds discussed in each chapter. Tapping one of the bird thumbnails takes you to a full-screen picture of that bird with a link to the text page that discusses it, where you can hear embedded audio of the bird's song (from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Macaulay Library) and find a further link to related information about the bird on the Internet.

This is just one—admittedly, very cool!—example of the work NMSG's EPUB team is capable of producing.