“Through the looking glass: envisioning new library technologies” A glimpse into the future of augmented reality

Purpose By better understanding the trends around augmented reality (AR) information professionals will be better able to take an active role as it emerges. Design/methodology/approach This column will examine trends in AR through the lens of three products that have recently been presented to journalists by Snap, Meta and Apple. Findings This column highlights the technical hurdles to creating mainstream AR experiences, and underscores how large technology companies are invested in overcoming them due to larger strategic goals, such as escaping the closed ecosystem of app development and creating meaningful AI experiences on phones. Originality/value This column underscores the importance of AR, as a technology that is core to libraries mission. AR will enable digital information to be layered onto physical reality which can change human relationship to both abstract information as well as the physical objects such as books and libraries that are important to the profession.