Unpacking My Library: The Book in Augmented Reality

See also: The Life of Books

This semester, students in Professor Andrew Rippeon’s “Unpacking My Library: The Book, The Burke, and the 20th Century” (Literature & Creative Writing) are introduced to the history and practice of the book in a long arc from the pre-Gutenberg era into the present.

With a focus on the 20th century, Rippeon’s students consider “the book” and “the library” as literary, theoretical, and material engagements: what does it mean to curate a library? How do technological developments bear upon information? How do authors and artists respond to these questions? Over the semester, and in addition to reading in these contexts and to writing their own original critical essays, students make letterpressed broadsides and books, curate micro-libraries, and produce (as a hard-copy book) an anthology of their writing.

Students put the finishing touches on a book making project.
Above: Students put the finishing touches on a book making project.

Top: Prof. Andrew Rippeon demonstrates setting type to a group of students.

In this iteration of the course, students will create their own charged technological context for the book: how does an augmented-reality book further pressurize the context we’re discussing? Students will use 3D technologies (3D printing and the Sprout Pro learning station), and augmented reality applications to produce a book that has a much broader material-technological footprint, at once engaging with and commenting upon the status of the book in the 21st century. We intend to produce an augmented-reality book that documents its own context and production.

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Building the Campus of the Future: EDUCAUSE-HP Research Project

Hamilton College is pleased to announce its participation in the Building the Campus of the Future: 3D Technologies in Academe EDUCAUSE/HP research project. This exciting initiative seeks to identify the 3D modalities that hold the greatest potential to result in improvements in learning and research outcomes, as well as enhancements of student engagement, faculty satisfaction and other qualitative metrics. The Research & Instructional Design Team (Library & IT Services) will be leading the initiative at Hamilton. Read More

About Hamilton College

Hamilton Home SlideChartered in 1812, Hamilton College is a coeducational, residential liberal arts institution of approximately 1800 students, nestled among the foothills of the Adirondacks in upstate New York. Education in all its forms is the central mission of Hamilton College. The pivotal commitment of the faculty, administration, and staff to the intellectual and personal development of students is the College’s most important and enduring tradition. Hamilton’s curriculum reflects an appropriate respect for breadth and depth in the study of the liberal arts, while continuing its traditional emphasis upon oral and written communication. The fundamental purpose of a Hamilton education is to enable young men and women of extraordinary talent to realize their fullest capabilities, for their own benefit and for the world in which they live.

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