Instagram is only a medium for visual art? Not any more. The New York Library now uses Instagram Stories to provide free literary classics for reading.
This may sound absurd at first reading and somehow Instagram seems to be the wrong medium, but it works surprisingly well the first time you try it. The resolution of retina displays is so high that the font is razor sharp, and the display size is also sufficient and comparable to a small paperback.
The New York Library starts the project with Alice in Wonderland and you can read it really well. Not only is the book text uploaded, there is also an introductory animation and a table of contents. Since the Instagram Stories usually scroll through by themselves after a few seconds, you have to keep your thumb in the bottom right corner so that it doesn’t continue until you’ve finished reading. If you forget that, then you can use a tap on the left side of the screen to scroll back.
It’s surprisingly a good way to read a book, the New York Library has managed to hack the Instagram Stories in an inspiring way.
The only disadvantage in the current format are animated text pages, i.e. normal pages that also contain a small animation. The basic idea for loosening up the reading flow is good, but the animation turns the whole thing into a video and thus loses resolution, i.e. the text also becomes less sharp compared to static pages.
Nevertheless, reading fans who like to use the technology of the present shall be amazed: Just give it a try. It’s a surprisingly good idea.
Here is the New York Public Library on Instagram.
(via)
