Friday, June 16, 2006

Eastern PA's VBI

A cryptic title, yes. But I have been exploring the VBI (Virtual Bibliographic Instruction) world created by Mark Puterbaugh at Eastern University in Pennsylvania. Does that make it clearer?

This is amazing. The VBI uses the software and services of Active Worlds, to create a virtual reality world in which students can access databases, the catalog, virtual reference, and also take a virtual tour of the library.

You can be a virtual tourist in Active Worlds and take a spin around VBI yourself. You just need to download the Active Worlds browser.

You can also see a picture of VBI here and also read a little bit more about the project here.

I can't wait to start building a virtual library for Jackson Library.