Illinois State Museum

Virtual Illinois: A Roadside Guide (vrillinois) combines location-aware technologies, user-friendly web-mapping applications (e.g., Google Maps, Mapquest), and the rich historic datasets of the Illinois State Museum to develop mobile and web applications to allow users to navigate historic landscapes in real time. This guide will allow the public to query the database on their mobile devices by theme (e.g., art, paleontology, etc.) and create virtual storylines through the use of tagged data points. It will be built so that nontechnical staff can add content to the framework with ease. It will also be a community resource, allowing local historical institutions and the public to add data, comment on existing data, and customize the framework for their own use.