the bible exhibition of the bible work linz shines thanks to XiBIT feat. hublz in new digital splendor!

The traveling exhibition "Expedition Bible" by the Bibelwerk Linz invites you to grasp and experience the Bible - the best-selling and most-read book in the world - with all your senses. "Please touch!" is the motto and if you follow the request, there is a lot to do: guessing games on various biblical topics, recognizing oriental spices, feeling the Bible in Braille and antique materials or connecting Jewish terms and objects, and much more.

Here visitors encounter concentrated Bible competence and learn everything about the book of books in an entertaining way. It is worth mentioning that there is a lot to discover especially for younger visitors in the exhibition, specially tailored to the needs of children. As a mobile traveling exhibition, the "Expedition Bible" tours through Austria regularly, but is also on the road in Germany, Switzerland and other countries.

The Bible moves with the times

In addition to the numerous analog experience possibilities in the exhibition, another application was used for a long time: a digital Bible app, which was specially programmed for the exhibition several years ago and made available to visitors on existing tablets. However, the expenses to maintain and further develop the application were ultimately no longer proportionate and a modern alternative was needed. "One where you can focus more on the content and its quality than on the technology behind it," say Franz Kogler and Reinhard Stiksel from the Bibelwerk Linz, the initiators of the digitization project. Functionality and appearance were no longer up-to-date, maintenance proved to be increasingly difficult. A modern CMS system should solve the problem. And this is how XiBIT came into play.

The challenge

After an initial discussion, presenting all the playful elements in the exhibition digitally was challenging. No problem with the new hublz feature at XiBIT. As an XiBIT partner, the didactic cultural mediation app hublz from Schörfling am Attersee offers the opportunity to individually design digital scavenger hunts and discovery tours and integrate them into XiBIT. The basic technical requirements were therefore in place and now one could devote oneself to the organization of the numerous contents of the Bible exhibition, which already included audio and video material in addition to the entire text and image material.

New features at XiBIT

The implementation was based on the seven three-point boards on site, which lead through the exhibition. Each panel of three is dedicated to a specific topic, which is again divided into 3 topics. Technically, this was implemented with the new parent-child object function. Maintained objects can be assigned to other objects as so-called "group objects", which then appear together as a tab on their object page. This feature provides more clarity and allows you to go more in-depth. All seven three-way panels and the starting point, a roll-up in the entrance area, were each equipped with a QR code.

Another new function could be used to visualize the Israel and Mediterranean maps and the places named on them: the PDF implementation on object pages. By means of iframe integration of two interactive PDF documents uploaded to XiBIT, the two maps could be displayed beautifully and operated in the same way in the iframe window. If you now click on a biblical place on the map, the PDF jumps to the right place in the document thanks to the internal links. In this way, the various events associated with the respective location can be read immediately.

Didactic cultural mediation for children, young people and school classes with hublz

The extensive interactive scavenger hunt in the hublz app for younger and young-at-heart visitors deals with various relevant Christian faith topics in a child-friendly way: From life in the time of Jesus to Judaism and Bible artwork. Using an interactive chatbot and puzzles, the children are guided from one point in the exhibition to another and thus through the entire exhibition, during which specific tasks are to be completed. We also thought about teaching in school classes and created a separate version for external use in preparation for visiting the exhibition.

All in all

Visitors now get a very good overview of the Bible, even from home, because the "Expedition Bible" is published on the XiBIT platform and is therefore accessible via the Internet. Contents can now be maintained by the Bibelwerk Linz itself and exchanged if necessary. The team no longer has to worry about technical development. And should the exhibition ever be expanded to include a foreign language, that is not a problem.

XiBIT labels for exhibition marking:

The central seven three-part panels in the Bible exhibition were each covered with a QR label from XiBIT so that the respective information can be called up by scanning. There is also a roll-up in the entrance area of the exhibition that contains the Infoguide QR code that leads to the Infoguide overview of the "Expedition Bible".

Signage for the hublz scavenger hunt:

The numerous puzzles in the exhibition were reworked by hublz - the app from Schörfling am Attersee for didactic cultural mediation. The connection between the two applications was established by means of a deep link. XiBIT produced the necessary signage, a total of 6 displays, which represent the stations of the scavenger hunt.

The XiBIT team thanks for the great and valuable project and the good cooperation!