Immersive Libraries and Museums

     Primarily, immersive libraries and museums act to provide learning, teaching and other resources for research in a virtual space that transcends having to physically get to your local or school library to find different books, videos, etc... The coalition that is tasked with completing this project is a consortium of professors from Boston College along with other partners like the Smithsonian Latino Center. This project is intended to be useful for collaboration, cooperation and for group study.
     The charter cites librarians and some of the problems they face. One of the problems primary problems is that many books and other resources are continually being put in digital form and being upgraded, so they generally look for new ways to make these resources available to a broader audience. Furthermore, the management of library materials tends to be complex and intense because you have several librarians in several different fields all trying to find ways of which to deliver the best library materials in the most efficient way, and in a way that is easy for the common person to utilize. The challenge of the cultural worker in the museum field is similar to that of the librarian as they seek to provide materials in a meaningful, accessible, and relevant way.
     Some of the objectives of this initiative is to come up with a space for both client and maker with specific platform integration and reference capability. I think it is particularly beneficial that the charter includes the incorporation of best practices for the provision and assessment of library materials which obviously means that the material found in the resulting libraries will definitely be treated as something scholarly in nature. The charter also goes into detail about how the initiative hopes to promote best practices across the field including redefining how cultural materials are being represented online.
     What I found interesting was that under criteria for success, some of the very things that we are doing in class is also helping the technology working group. For example, one of our final assignments is to basically develop our own library, and we are essentially helping with this groups criteria for success so that they may refer to our materials when trying to compile their libraries. I also thought it was unique in nature that the charter mentions at-risk youth and developments aimed at helping them.

Source:

http://jied.org/1/1/8/

Revised 2013-03-21

Authors: Jerome Yavarkovsky, Melissa Carrillo, H. Nicholas Nagel Affiliations: Immersive Education Initiative, Smithsonian Latino Center, Boston College

Copyright © 2012 Immersive Education Initiative. All Rights Reserved.