PRESS RELEASE Virtual Library of Birmingham opens its doors for public exploration 110704 For immediate release The Virtual Library of Birmingham, built by Daden Limited (Daden), has opened its doors to the public allowing access two years before the real life building is ready for occupancy. The Virtual Library of Birmingham allows visitors to explore and learn more about the public spaces within the new library as well as leave their comments. Birmingham City Council contracted Daden to deliver an interactive virtual model of the new library in Second Life. The purpose of the REIP (Regional Efficiency and Improvement Partnerships) funded project was to support community engagement, and to inform the internal fit-out. Daden used the architect’s images, plans and drawings to build the Virtual Library of Birmingham in situ on Centenary Square in Second Life. Working with the Library of Birmingham team, Daden also created a warehouse of furniture and objects. They trained the Library of Birmingham team in the skills necessary to make changes and to also furnish the Virtual Library, as and when more detail was known regarding the internal spaces. “We felt it was important to allow the team to own the building and to be able to make changes to the floor space and experiment with the internal fit-out rather than be reliant on Daden - and it's worked well,” says Daden's Managing Director David Burden. “Every time we visit the library we notice they have made changes or added more detail.” Daden have also provided the Library of Birmingham an array of tools to enable visitors to explore the library in different ways and to capture comments. “You can choose to explore by yourself, take a flying book tour or let a virtual guide describe areas of the library,” says Soulla Stylianou, Daden's Client Director. To support consultation, the Library of Birmingham can position “preference podiums” anywhere within the library to capture people's preferences on any given topic and create spaces where different furniture configurations can be changed at a touch of a virtual button. Visitors can also use Daden's annotated spaces (3D post-it notes) to leave comments which subsequent visitors can like/dislike. Those comments are immediately logged back to a web-based database, and later visitors can like/dislike (as in facebook) each comment, or add their own. As people like/dislike the “post-it” notes (typically spheres) change colour and you can end up with a very visual and colour coded commentary of someone's journey through the building. “Virtual worlds are all about community, collaboration and the social aspects of an activity whereas the web which is typically about the informational and transactional aspects. With a virtual world model people can begin to understand what a building or space will be like and share their experience with others - something quite different to watching a video fly through of a development,” notes Soulla /continued
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