VR Library — The Athenæum of Public Domain Classics

THE NORTH WING

The Screening Room

Film, lectures, and stories. Set up a screening, then take your place in the theatre.

YouTube opens in this browser panel. Its embedded player cannot appear on a WebXR screen. For YouTube stereoscopic or 180°/360° content, open the video in YouTube’s native immersive player.

Or choose a local file

Projection

Volume

For Quest 3 / 3S, start with an H.264 MP4 at 1080p or 4K. Stereo requires a source encoded as side-by-side or top/bottom. This screen does not convert ordinary videos to 3D. Local files stay on your device.

Choose a source to begin.

How to use the Athenæum

🖥 Desktop

WASD / arrows — walk (everything is solid; climb the stairs to the gallery) · drag — look
Click a spine — hold it in your hand (visible)
Double-click held book — read standing · click lectern — place & open
Click a chair / bench — sit down (WASD / Esc to stand)
Click pages / Q E — turn pages · F — reading view · X shelve held
T text panel · R shelve all · C catalog · Esc close panels / stand
✦ Graphics — Performance / Balanced / Cinematic quality (bloom & resolution)

🥽 VR (Quest etc.)

Trigger a book — grab it (grip/pinch work too)
A button — open & read it in your hand
Right stick ◀ ▶ — turn pages anywhere
Left stick ◀ ▶ — snap-turn (comfort) · left stick ▲ ▼ — glide forward/back
Release over a table or lectern — place & open to read
Trigger floor / gallery — teleport (upstairs too)
Brass discs by spawn — hop to North Stacks, Map Room, Fireplace, Stairs
Hanging signs mark each subject zone — shelves are shelved by subject
Catalog board summons any title to the reading stand
↩ Shelve all — put every book back

🗺 Layout

The North Stacks wing (through the arch, past the catalog board side) holds Science, History, Philosophy and more Fiction — with its own lectern and reading tables. The Map Room (west portal) holds Travel and Classics. The Directory by spawn and its four brass discs jump you between zones.

▷ Screening room

Use Theatre in the toolbar or the directory to visit the screening room. Load an MP4/WebM video before entering VR; the console controls playback, seeking, stereo format, and eye order. YouTube uses its official browser player.

📚 Content sources

Texts resolve live from Internet Archive scans first, then Project Gutenberg cache files, then live Open Library / IA search — all public-domain works (US, commercial reuse allowed), indexed via Gutendex metadata. Summaries: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA, attributed in-app; fetched live when missing). Covers: Open Library Covers API. Every spine maps to a real catalog volume, shelved by subject — like a real library.