POCKET MUSEUM
Walk, really walk, through an Augmented Reality Museum...in real time, in real space.
PocketMuseum is an augmented reality app which allows a museum gallery to materialize around the veiwer. Once the museum materializes, the viewer can physically walk around the space viewing the exhibit as though it was comprised of corpreal objects.
The app was developed by the Augmented Archives team at Washington College in the spring of 2018. We are currently seeking opportunities to move PocketMuseum beyond its prototype stage into an application to deploy across learning environments bringing world-class museums and collections directly to learners wherever they are. Stay tuned as we update our progress.
PocketMuseum App
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Above: View from our prototype app -- PocketMuseum by Washington College. The app launches a virtual exhibit that a viewer can experience by quite literally walking through the virtual gallery. Viewers can look at items in virtual cases and watch curator commentary videos on a virtual television screen.
Above: A web-based version of the PocketMuseum App. This prototype allows users with limited space or limited mobility to view the digital museum in an alternative way.
Try it out! Use the ARROW KEYS on the keyboard to move throughout the museum. Use your computer mouse to look around.
We've Come a Long Way
What began as an instructional experiment has become a significant research area for our team as we explore the utility of this emerging technology in museum/special collections and classroom instruction.
We have been able to share our work through writing chapter 6 in the book Augmented and Virtual Reality in Libraries (2018, Rowman & Littlefield), as well as presenting our work at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History and the Association of College and Research Libraries as well as here with our colleagues and community here at Washington College. We were recently accepted to ILiADS--Institute for Liberal Arts Digital Scholarship--in which we will receive specialized support in moving this initiative forward to its next iteration. We were honored to be the recipients of a 2018 Campus Technology Impact Award and a 2018 NDSA Future Steward Innovation Award.
Bishop, R. and Calloway, H. (2018). Augmented archives: engaging students in archives and special collections through augmented reality technology. (p. 93-111) In Augmented and virtual reality in libraries. London. Rowman and Littlefield.
2018 Innovation Awards
