Virtural Reality: Exploring New Frontiers

Imagine for a minute you are attending a library read aloud.  You are surrounded by a group of inner city youngsters who are enjoying a timeless classic, Verdi.  When you finish your book you put on your VR glasses and take a guided tour of the rainforest with a guide showing you the animals and plants.  Then you reread this book again, this time with more understanding and newly activated schema firing in the little ones’ brains. 

According to Marshall, (2016), Virtual Reality or 3D images, at least, have been around for a long time.  Charles Wheatstone invented a 3D image viewer called a stereopticon.  Then in 1935, Stanley G. Weinbaum wrote a story about a professor that has a pair of goggles that allow the user to see, taste, smell and feel (Marshall, 2016). As I child, I remember playing with  a “View-Master” that let me see Miss Piggy as if she were standing right in front of me.  There is something magical about being able to see something right in front of you that you know is not there.

Here is an ad from Google showing off how their technology works in a classroom setting:

 

With the rising popularity and quality of VR these days, not to mention the dropping prices, it is no surprise that some libraries are taking advantage of the increasingly better and less expensive virtual reality (VR) market.  For example, North Carolina State University has a space where they lend VR headsets and motion controllers and allow patrons to use the equipment for classes or for creating (Ford, 2017).

Virtual reality is not without concerns.  For example, Alex Faaborg, a Google VR designer, discussed in a TedTalk (2015) how difficult creating a comfortable VR experience can be.  He mentions that we need to be mindful of not only keeping people from getting motion sick by using improved technology, but also to consider the emotional responses they have to the virtual environment.  Being so immersed in a virtual environment can cause actual physiological responses. Faaborg mentions that if you are watching a virtual sky full of planets and one comes flying toward your head, you are going to duck (Tedx Talks, 2015).  There are many videos on the internet of people playing a game where you are walking a simulated plank 60 stories above ground.  The experience feels real as their heart rates race and their survival brain takes over… even when they are completely aware they are standing in the middle of a safe room!  Another consideration is that whenever someone is creating a story or information, or in this case a whole new world, it is important to see how it is presented and what biases are at work within the piece.

 

And the potential is not just in virtual reality, where you are removed from one place and put in a virtual place.  Instead there is a lot of opportunity with augmented reality.  According to Marshall (2016), "augmented reality experiences do not remove the user from the real world."  Instead they add a layer of complexity to the real world. One example of well know augmented reality is Google Glass.  This pair of specialized glasses lets the user see the world, while interacting with the internet at the same time.



Photo by Sergiu Vălenaș on Unsplash

Have you ever come across a beautiful old text that you wish you could share, but it is just too old and fragile for handling? What if, with augmented reality, you could wear a set of glasses that throw the original text on blank pages of a simulated book and as you turn the pages, the virtual text turns too.  Is the text in old English? No problem, you can translate it as well or find out more about a particular illustration, author or passage.  While this is hypothetical uses of augmented reality, there are already some interesting library uses for AR.  Beth Mulch (2014), a high school librarian, used a student directed virtual overly to give new life to the yearly library orientation. Students were given the task to film, direct, and share one library section or resource they enjoyed.  Students came in for orientation and received IPads and wandered around the library listening to their peers explain different areas or share favorite books from that section as they went into that area (Much, 2014).

There are definitely some exciting things as well as some discussions to be had over the use of virtual and augmented reality in libraries and other areas of life.

References

Ford, A. (2017, September 1). Making Virtual Reality a Reality. Retrieved from https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2017/09/01/making-virtual-reality-a-reality/

Marshall, P. (2016, February 26). Virtual reality. CQ Researcher, 26, 193-216. Retrieved from http://library.cqpress.com/

Mulch, B. E. (2014). Library Orientation Transformation: From Paper Map to Augmented Reality. Knowledge Quest, 42(4), 50-53. Retrieved from http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.palomar.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=7&sid=5af10958-dada-4262-b89e-613e4e5143fa%40sessionmgr101

TEDx Talks. (2015, September 8). Designing for virtual reality and the impact on       education, Alex Faaborg TEDxCincinnati.[Video File]Retrieved from

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQMA5NNhN58