{"id":75,"date":"2026-10-20T21:59:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T21:59:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu\/thetransparentlabyrinth\/?p=75"},"modified":"2026-10-20T21:59:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T21:59:17","slug":"reflecting-on-the-future-of-hyperlinked-libraries-in-virtual-environments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu\/thetransparentlabyrinth\/2026\/10\/20\/reflecting-on-the-future-of-hyperlinked-libraries-in-virtual-environments\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflecting on the Future of Hyperlinked Libraries in Virtual Environments"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Uncensored Library’s Dome<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I was perusing amongst the digital stacks in Module 6 for an adventure of my own choosing when my daughter walked through the back door, excited to tell me that inside Minecraft<\/a><\/em> is an endangered library of banned articles, books, and reports. Then, most serendipitously<\/a>, I saw at the bottom of the resource list a link to an archived post from a former Hyperlinked Library student, Martin Martinez: \u201cThe Metaverse, Minecraft<\/em>, and the Uncensored Library.\u201d<\/a> This meta-library is such a profoundly beautiful and egalitarian idea that it chose me.<\/span><\/p>\n

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A Reader at The Uncensored Library<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Minecraft<\/em> is not just an environment for building with virtual blocks and minerals or for game play alone. Inside of the virtual world is also a protected archive, The Uncensored Library<\/a><\/em>, created in 2020 by Reporters Without Borders<\/a> (RSF) with the virtual architecture group BlockWorks<\/a>. The library\u2019s virtual books contain reportage censored by illiberal and authoritarian governments, in wings of the library curated by RSF for Mexico, Russia, Belarus, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Brazil, Iran, Eritrea, and \u2014 added in 2026 \u2014 the United States. The books are read-only, to protect their content from tampering. At first flush it seems in line with the spirit of the Hyperlinked Library model: meeting the users where they are, the gamification of learning, and a humanitarian focus on preservation. But the very restrictions that are necessary for user access and protection \u2014 one-way reading, top-down curation, and no librarians at hand \u2014 would seem to disqualify it as truly a Hyperlinked Library.<\/span><\/p>\n