Faubion,
Kathy
Hinze,
A. & Bainbridge, D. (2016). Location-triggered mobile access to a digital
library of audio books using TIPPLE. International
Journal on Digital Libraries, 17, 339-365. doi:10.1007/s00799-015-0165-z
Descriptive Summary: Using location-aware software
(Tipple), a person may be shown maps or historical information which relates to
an audio book they have downloaded. For
example, some who has downloaded Jane Austen’s Persuasion would be given location and relevant information on the
assembly rooms in Bath. This is known as literary tourism. Tipple is based on
Tip (tourist information provider). As you are near a point of interest, the
app (there are several which use Tip) chirps at you and you can then listen to
the chapter in the book which correlates to the landmark. This study used the
Greenstone Digital Library and text-to-speech features to access the MP3 audio
books. You can tweak the settings to allow you to see a map with points of
interest, or distance from where you are to points of interest, or finally
points of interest listed in book order so you can literally follow the path of
the story.
Evaluation: Ever since my children explained Pokemon
Go to me, I have been fascinated by the idea of a virtual world within real
world locations. The idea of being able to travel to the real places within a
story and listen to the parts of the book which take place there is genius. For
example, traveling the path set out in The
Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown and listening to the parts of the story that
happen at each landmark would be the ultimate literary experience in my
opinion. I am amazed at the complexity of the design in this study. It has to
use several different platforms to achieve the marriage of location-based
software and digital audio materials, and the diagram of all the programs in
play is dizzying. However, the participants in the study were able to make
somewhat successful use of Tipple. The authors conclude that there is still a
lot of work to be done to make the experience seamless, however they are also
already looking to add further augmented reality into the experience. I’m
waiting for the experience when I can actually talk to a virtual Mr. Darcy.
