Updated: 5 days ago
issue 2
fall 2026
Notes from the field: Immersive Media in Public Libraries: A Pilot
A researcher/veteran producer of community-centric immersive experiences brings a VR-enabled storytelling project to the public library--engaging both patrons and library staff.
Courtesy of Author
Editor's Introduction
In “Immersive Media in Public Libraries: A Pilot” Sarah Wolozin describes a summer-long pilot program to bring immersive storytelling—along with its associated technology—into six Massachusetts public libraries. Over the course of twelve pop-up events across the site, which drew more than 150 visitors, Wolozin notes the reactions and conversations the experiences sparked amongst patrons and the librarians with whom she partnered. While reflecting on some of the inherent challenges to the project’s long term sustainability, she offers some thoughts on how to integrate new technology into community spaces to foster connection.
"It feels so real," Clarisse said as she walked out of the room after experiencing Impulse: Playing With Reality, a mixed reality (MR) piece about the extremes of ADHD (“Impulse” creator May Abdallah has written about the creative process behind that project in this issue.)
Clarisse was one of a group of high school students hanging out in the teen room on a Friday afternoon at the Mattapan Branch of the Boston Public Library, a common occurrence at many public libraries throughout the country. Public libraries serve teens as much as anyone else, explains Rebeca Andrade, the Mattapan teen librarian. In fact, research from the American Library Association (ALA) indicates that 87% of U.S. public libraries provide services and programming for teens, with more than 97% also featuring dedicated library areas with teen books and other relevant materials.
We had three rooms reserved for the Impulse experience, and Clarisse volunteered immediately. Her friends peered over the bookcase and through the glass wall to watch this odd scene from a distance as she swatted and swung her arms with a headset on for 40 minutes, in what is normally a quiet study room.
A teen from the Mattapan branch of the Boston Public Library experiencing the VR title “Impulse: Playing with Reality.” Photo by Sarah Wolozin
Most of the teens who tried the headsets stayed through the entire 40-minute experience — much longer than most videos they consume. Word spread quickly around the room, and more teens lined up.
We arranged to hold two VR pop-ups per library at six Massachusetts libraries over a 3-month period. Concurrently, our colleagues in Los Angeles– Nonny de la Peña, Rory Mitchell continued the work of founding producer Scarlett Kim–offering pop-ups at the LA Public Library. These pop-ups were part of a research initiative, funded by the Agog Immersive Institute (which also funds the Immersive Impact Review,) to test the idea that U.S. libraries could become hubs for immersive storytelling. This first phase focused on VR with a plan to follow with other technologies and formats.
We chose libraries because they are among the most accessible, most trusted civic institutions in the country — an untapped network for distributing, exhibiting, and teaching immersive media. There are roughly 19,000 public library systems in the U.S. and more than 17,000 individual main libraries, plus another 98,000-plus public school libraries, not counting informal libraries housed in community and cultural organizations. By contrast, there are fewer than 5,000 movie theaters in the entire country.
We found four ways to bring XR into libraries: through Library of Things collections; Maker Spaces; Tech Platforms; and through Programming and Events.
Library of Things
Many libraries have a section called the Library of Things where patrons can check out new technologies and tools. It's where Nintendo Switches and Chromebooks live. Many librarians I talked to could see VR headsets as part of the offerings. Senior Librarian Edwin Rodarte at The Los Angeles Public Library was hired specifically to focus on emerging technology. He was able to arrange staff and volunteer training and after a few pop ups that yielded demonstrated patron interest, he added the VR headsets to the Library of Things in branch libraries.
Maker Spaces
Maker Spaces in libraries are a place where patrons can experience hands-on learning and create both analog and digital projects. These represent a potential home for VR headsets and other XR technologies together with trained staff and class offerings for people to both experience and create VR experiences.
Platforms
Libraries have subscriptions to many digital platforms to provide content to their patrons such as Kanopy, for films, and Hoopla for audiobooks. An XR subscription service or a database of content could give libraries access to content. We worked with Unframed Collection which offers a subscription service to libraries. With a VR headset from the Library of Things, a library could become a regular VR lending resource.
Library Events and Programming
Libraries are set up for patrons to offer programming. We reserved community rooms, marketed our events, and showed up with our VR headsets and catalogue of content, ready to welcome visitors to explore new forms of storytelling.
Project Reflection
Within the field of libraries, there is widespread acknowledgement from scholars that many outcomes from community initiatives and programming are “intangible which makes identifying and measuring them a challenge because their value is often intrinsic.”
One big take away from the pilot project is the need for marketing and partnerships no matter which route you take if you want to reach adults. Most people in the general public have not tried cultural VR. They associate VR with games and/or Meta Horizon or worse, nausea and dizziness. You need to bring in your audience.
We put paper signs on bulletin boards in every library we visited. Photo by Sarah Wolozin. Poster Design by Akmyrat Tuyliyev.
By the end of the summer, with better marketing and word of mouth, we started to have steady streams of people. Across the board, people loved the experiences. We heard, "wow" again and again and people would take off the headsets and want to talk to us or whomever else was in the room about their experience, viewpoint, or interest in making VR.
But not all reactions were positive. One man told us he wanted technology that brings people together, not technology that separates them, a common complaint about VR. Previous research on the integration of VR in public libraries has indicated that patrons often come to the technology with preexisting biases, but are surprised at the communal experiences that emerge when there is time built into the programming for discussion. Furthermore, there is growing interest among creators and venues to make VR experiences collective. Nu:Reality is one such example of a collective viewing platform for cinemas. We also witnessed the power of a good story in individual headsets to bring people to other worlds and back together for a sharing of their experience.
Out of more than 150 visitors across our sites, 53 completed our survey. 85% (45 of 53) would return to the library specifically for more VR. 86% of those who answered (30 of 35) want the library to carry a catalogue of VR experiences. Two-thirds rated continuing the program as important. This does not include the many teens who begged their librarian, Rebeca Andrade to buy VR headsets and content.
Our screenings of the VR-enabled film Traveling While Black, which provides an immersive experience of the history of restricted movement for Black Americans during the era of Jim Crow, provoked some of the most powerful conversations of the whole project. Partway through the experience, one woman took off her headset and began telling us her own stories — about traveling by car from the South to the North as a little girl, and how her job in the back seat was to help navigate the alternate routes that were safer for Black families, packing enough food so they'd never have to stop. Another woman took her headset off in tears, remembering that her grandmother had been a sharecropper, and that her father used to travel south to help her. A third woman — who was white, sitting alongside two Black women — said, "well, this is really for white people to see, because Black people already know this experience." One of the Black women immediately pushed back: "Oh no, it resonates. It really resonates."
After conversations with the Mattapan teens who expressed their interest in VR, Andrade, who'd already brought in two pinball machines for teens the year before — decided to write a grant proposal that includes permanent headsets and programming to bring VR to her youth after seeing the enthusiasm with which these younger patrons engaged with immersive media.
“I think it was really encouraging to their creativity…it's the immersion aspect, the fact that it feels like you're watching something that's technically not real, but you're fully thrown into it. And then once you break down a barrier… [it] makes them think, what else could I do with this?“
Andrade and the LA Senior Librarian Edwin Rodarte show that there is potential for immersive storytelling hubs in libraries. But the roadblocks are real. The XR distribution infrastructure still needs to be built. Libraries are unevenly resourced. Big city main libraries and wealthy towns have the resources to buy headsets and train staff to maintain the equipment and help patrons. Some have access to grants. Many libraries do not. And even those with resources are concerned about the forced obsolescence of technology, the impermanence, and the cost for content. These are questions for the field at large. For our research, we plan to continue exploring these questions and whether libraries can be immersive storytelling hubs at scale, moving beyond VR, adding skill-building workshops and staff training and continuing to ask whether XR can become part of civic life. In the meantime, artists can show their work and people can become XR makers library by library.
Sarah Wolozin
Sarah Wolozin is a research scientist and former director of the MIT Open Documentary Lab, where she co-founded the fellows program, the Independent XR Distribution Coalition, Immerse, Docubase, and the Co-Creation Studio. She curates convenings, executive-produces immersive media projects, and has published widely on XR, AI, and the future of media. Her work focuses on investigating and advocating for immersive experiences that foster connection, strengthen communities, and promote more open, equitable, and sustainable systems artists, cultural organizations and the broader public.
The author would like to thank the following Massachusetts team members: Priyanka Salunkhe, project coordinator, Akmyrat Tuyliyev, marketing producer, and Mehvish Ali, on-site and community outreach producer.