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Announcing GODOT v 0.1 ------------------------------

We're proud to announce the availability of GODOT (GopherVR Organized Directories Of Titles). With GODOT you can visualize large collections of titles in 3D navigatable scene.

The GODOT software runs on your Unix Gopher server. It uses a modified version of our Gopher to Z39.50 Version 2 gateway (go4zgate 2.0) to retrieve bibliographic information from remote library on-line catalogs. The titles are categorized, and virtual worlds, based on an author's canon, are created. You navigate the virtual worlds with a GopherVR client.

Why is this useful?

This is step 1 towards creating virtual reality based digital libraries. In the real world, when someone finds herself at the library ready to research a topic she knows nothing of, what does she do? Well, she probably tries to locate a book, some book, any book, on the topic she is interested in. She then looks at the books sitting on the shelf next to the book he found - and from there tries to get a feel for the scope of the topic she is researching. Once she has a general understanding of the problem she proceeds to devise a strategy for solving the problem at hand.

GODOT puts the user in the middle of a VR library. It gives the user the oppurtunity to grasp the magnitude of books available. GODOT then provides the user with additional information by providing visual indications about each book's relationship with each other.

How can I try it out?

You can navigating some worlds by connecting to the following URL. Note that you'll want to have a GopherVR client to see the keen 3D graphics.

<URL:gopher://arcwelder.micro.umn.edu/11/Projects/VR/GODOT>

GopherVR clients are available for the Macintosh and Unix from:

<URL:ftp://boombox.micro.umn.edu/pub/gopher> <URL:gopher://boombox.micro.umn.edu/gopher>

If you want to create worlds, based on the work of your favorite authors, using GODOT you can get the software from:

<URL:gopher://boombox.micro.umn.edu:70/11/gopher/Unix/Godot> <URL:ftp://boombox.micro.umn.edu/pub/gopher/Unix/Godot>