Introducing Booksnake: A Scholarly App for Transforming Existing Digitized Archival Materials into Life-Size Virtual Objects for Embodied Interaction in Physical Space, using IIIF and Augmented Reality

We introduce Booksnake, a new mobile app that makes it feel like digitized archival items are physically present in a user’s real-world surroundings by using the augmented reality (AR) technology in consumer smartphones and tablets. Unlike humanities projects that use virtual reality (VR) or AR to publish custom content, Booksnake is a general-purpose, content-agnostic tool compatible with existing online collections that support the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF). In this article, we critique existing flat-screen image viewers and discuss the benefits of embodied interaction with archival materials. We contextualize Booksnake within the broader landscape of immersive technologies for cultural heritage. We detail the technical pipeline by which Booksnake transforms existing digitized archival materials into custom life-size virtual objects for interaction in physical space. We conclude with a brief discussion of the future of the immersive humanities.