Editorial Board Thoughts: The Promise of Immersive Libraries

Immersive technologies--interactive 3D graphics, simulation, and gaming technologies--have much to offer higher education by collapsing geography and by providing a richer learning environment. Over the past forty years, through digitization and Internet services, librarians have brought technology to bear on making it easier to find and use information, even to the point where people can find and use library resources without coming to the library. Information space--the space between user and literature--has been collapsed through digital access. Now there is potential to collapse the space between users themselves as they work together from different locations. In recent decades, learning has gone from a predominantly independent and competitive process for students to one that makes greater use of collaboration, cooperation, and group study. The library as a place for students and researchers to work individually with their literature has become a collaborative workspace where students work together on research projects and shared class assignments. This presents a challenge to libraries and learning institutions with limited space for students to meet, share ideas, do coursework together, work on joint projects, and practice presentations. For more than five years, advances in the development of virtual meeting space and workspace have enabled librarians to provide immersive, 3D virtual world services that give a sense of presence that is lacking in conference calls, text chat, and web conferencing. (1) As a result, not only is the individual's physical distance from library materials eliminated, but also the distance is eliminated between individuals who work with each other using library materials. Immersive technologies offer the promise of 3D virtual world libraries where students and their teachers can work together in virtual space with library materials and tools--search engines, online catalogs, media, text, etc. Students would sit at their computer wherever they are and work together with classmates in a shared environment, using library materials as well as productivity tools--word processor, spreadsheet, web, or blog development software. This would be a boon for real-world institutions lacking sufficient physical space, but also for distance education and international education. For example, students might study abroad but take a class at their home institution, take classes with classmates at foreign institutions, learn languages and experience foreign cultures more directly, or take classes in locales not accessible to professors. And now, with the advent of Massive Open Online Courses, the opportunity lies within the immersive library to serve large numbers of students who have limited or no library facilities. These students would be able to use library resources as well as to communicate and work with classmates, teaching assistants, tutors, and others whose support would be augmented through their virtual presence rather than via email or text chat. As current research material is born digital, and legacy material is digitized at accelerating rates and is delivered digitally, they are perfect for use in immersive environments. However, immersive library resources are not limited to traditional materials. They include virtual world learning objects and environments, and virtual representations of books--walk-in books or educational simulation--that are interactive experiences with literature. (2) Further, in virtual space, physical research objects can be part of the study environment and be brought into an active relationship with the information resources that pertain to them. For example, if you were studying 3D models of Mayan pottery in a virtual library workspace, you would have access to historical accounts, conference papers, current periodical articles, photographic archives, dissertations and other material pertinent to your studies. …