Reagan Library

"Reagan Library might be best described as exploratory hypertext fiction. In this work, [Moulthrop] has created an eerie world, reminiscent of the game Myst and its sequels, which seems to require a particular state of mind, a suspension of disbelief, and a total immersion into a new and unexplored universe.

Each page presents a few paragraphs of text and an image. The images, composed of strange retro-futuristic buildings in foreign marine landscapes, have clickable elements that permit the exploration of the world either by zooming into a particular aspect of the panorama or by presenting alternative views of a building or some other part of the landscape. The text, albeit in a less evident manner, also includes hyperlinks as well as text in italics, which we are told ' . . . represent[s] important messages from the Library.' This gives the Library itself the status of a character, and one that is attempting to deliver a message to the explorer.

As an alternative reading mode, one could simply follow a sort of prescribed order from page to page. With all these possibilities, the reader might find himself confronted with similar issues to those presented by the Argentine writer Julio Cortázar's novel Hopscotch (Rayuela), in which the possible orders of reading (following the numerical order, stopping at chapter 56 or following the prescribed table) generate only two of the many possible readings of the book. So, in the same manner and by a combination of elements, Reagan Library could also be read in many different ways." -- Leonardo Flores, I Love E-Poetry