Santa Clara University's new library building won't be completed until the autumn of 2008. But people on the campus can experience what it might be like inside the building, and offer advice to its designers, by exploring a three-dimensional model of the library in the online virtual world Second Life.
A model of the library was created by the New Media Consortium, a higher-education-technology group. "Santa Clara decided to let people use the virtual interior before the inside was actually built," said Larry Johnson, the consortium's chief executive, to a gathering of college-technology leaders today at the group's annual conference, in Indianapolis.
About 400 people are attending the four-day event, which ends Saturday. Mr. Johnson also showed slides of the virtual library. –Andrea L. Foster
