The world is full of unfathomably huge digital archives of incredibly interesting things. Every academic library, every museum, even the web itself is full of giant collections of things, but despite many folks' best intentions, these archives are usually not too connected with an audience who may be interested in seeing those objects and talking to each other about them.

That's what the Playable Archive is here for. With this platform, developed by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Computing and Information, we've taken digital archives and turned them into big virtual worlds; museums built to allow users to explore the contents of the archive, make their own exhibits, and talk to each other about it.