The emergence of Metaverse has provided new prospects and motivation for the development of intelligent libraries. At the same time, it puts forward new requirements and challenges to the professional competence of intelligent librarians. This chapter analyzes the development opportunities of the Metaverse and its application prospects in intelligent libraries to promote innovation and optimization of library services. It also discusses the advantages of Metaverse and its underlying technologies, as well as the theoretical logic of Metaverse application in libraries. Metaverse and its related technologies are the key to promote libraries to fully intelligent libraries, and the concept of Metaverse also creates more advantages for libraries in terms of collection resource management, reading space, cultural promotion, reading experience, and special user services to realize the morphological reform of intelligent libraries. Intelligent libraries should seize the opportunity to create a new form of innovative development of immersive experience.
TopIntroduction
In today's world, a new wave of technological revolution and industrial change is emerging. Virtual reality technology is a representative technology of the new revolution in science and technology, and will become a key technology to promote the development of the digital economy and industrial transformation and upgrade. On October 20, 2021, the World VR Industry Conference pointed out that the development of virtual reality industry has a vast space and great potential; we should further carry out “VR+” action, enrich terminal products and content services, and promote the industrialization of virtual reality technology and industrial scale up (Zhang et al., 2022). The innovation and development of virtual and reality industries have changed the services of traditional cultural venues, and the emergence of metadata has brought new opportunities to libraries. Each development of technological revolution has brought disruptive changes to the service model of libraries. From information to knowledge to big data, the service model of libraries has experienced from the traditional service model to the digital library service model to the intelligent library. The currently mentioned metaverse represents another disruption of the library service model.
There are 3 stages in the development of intelligent libraries: pseudo-intelligent, partially intelligent and fully intelligent (Njoku, Nwakanma, Amaizu, & Kim, 2022). From the current stage of development of intelligent libraries, libraries are still in pseudo-intelligent and partially intelligent stages (Alpala, Quiroga-Parra, Torres, & Peluffo-Ordóñez, 2022). Technologies such as Web 3.0, Internet of Things, big data, and cloud computing (Dai, Wang, & Gao, 2022) are widely used in the intelligent services of libraries, but their intelligent services are limited by time and space. The emergence of Metaverse will break the boundary between the digital and physical worlds, expand the service boundary of intelligent libraries, and bring more possibilities for their intelligent development. Therefore, exploring the transformation of intelligent library service model under the perspective of Metaverse has distinct significance for the development of intelligent library services.