3D (VRML) Interface to IRCAM's Multimedia Library

[Linda Woods Hyman]

At 12:22 PM 1/13/99 -0800, you wrote:
>Jedi Knight is a "cool" 3D experience. Battle Zone is a "cool" 3D
>experience. The library catalog interface under discussion here, however,
>does nothing to "save the time of the reader", which I thought was one of
>the tenets upon which we were all in agreement.
>

Remember using the internet in the old days--- UNIX commands, no way to
correct typing errors, slashes for bookmarks, moving up and down and over
between directories...ew.  What a waste of time. Thankfully, others saw the
value, hung in there, and created browsers.

As recently as two years ago, I met librarians who swore they would never
offer internet access to the public in their libraries. Now we're brooding
and feuding over whether to allow email and chats. I see 3D virtual
environments as a natural extension to information access. The metaphor of
books and the library will work as long as users relate information access
to books and libraries. 

I can only hope that when the intelligent agent is developed that guides
the users in this environment, the metaphor is not some frumpy looking hag
from library hell. In the meantime, I think it's "cool" that somebody is
taking the first steps.  The more choices we can provide users, the more
users we can serve.
Linda Woods Hyman
Pacific Bell Education Market Group
(619) 237-2020
http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired