Viki LibraRy: collaborative hypertext browsing and navigation in virtual reality

• Published in: The new review of hypermedia and multimedia Vol. 31; no. 1-2; pp. 45 - 75
• Main Authors: Bönisch, Kevin, Mehler, Alexander, Babbili, Shaduan, Heinrich, Yannick, Stephan, Philipp, Abrami, Giuseppe
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Taylor & Francis 03.04.2025; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: collaboration; Data processing; future of reading; Hypertext; Immersive virtual reality; Spatial data; spatial hypertext; virtual library; Virtual reality
• ISSN: 1361-4568; 1740-7842
• DOI: 10.1080/13614568.2024.2383581

We present Viki LibraRy, a dynamically built library in virtual reality (VR) designed to visualise hypertext systems, with an emphasis on collaborative interaction and spatial immersion. Viki LibraRy goes beyond traditional methods of text distribution by providing a platform where users can share, process, and engage with textual information. It operates at the interface of VR, collaborative learning and spatial data processing to make reading tangible and memorable in a spatially mediated way. The article describes the building blocks of Viki LibraRy, its underlying architecture, and several use cases. It evaluates Viki LibraRy in comparison to a conventional web interface for text retrieval and reading. The article shows that Viki LibraRy provides users with spatial references for structuring their recall, so that they can better remember consulted texts and their meta-information (e.g. in terms of subject areas and content categories).