Biblioteca virtual Paul Outlet: uma experiência não imersiva no Second Life

Abstract

This work introduces a discussion about the technological development in the 20th century which culminates in the emergence of Information Society. It also discourses about the obstacles faced to internet access, the purpose of ancient libraries, medieval and modern, passing through historical times, and its transformations inherited by the evolution of information technology and communication. Approaching the differences between electronic, digital and virtual library and it analyzes the concepts of virtual reality, augmented reality and augmented virtuality, by the virtual library Paul Otlet, situated on Second Life, since its creation mechanisms to the interaction between its users. This research is part of an initiation scientific project “Information and Knowledge in the Clouds” of Federal University of Paraíba. It aims to study the interaction between goers and the library, inserted in a virtual reality environment, focusing on Portuguese language users. It was necessary to create a virtual library in Second Life which is the most accessed portal of virtual reality of internet according to ALEXA Web Information Service (2013). The research was developed in a descriptive way, through a study case which allows us to trace users’ profile, to verify the obstacles to the information access, to know the users’ opinion and gather information which could promote improvement in the library. An electronic survey was applied, consisting in 12 questions separated by three topics: About the user; about the library and user’s opinion. The survey was made with Google Docs assistance and it was used as a data collecting tool. It was considered 40 answerers, in its majority female, in the age group between 20 to 29 years old, complete/ incomplete higher education, Brazilians who access more than once per day Second Life and never had visited a virtual library before. The work pointed to that although users had not the habit of going to libraries in SL a virtual reality interface, the interaction with this kind of environment is much more frequent.