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The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether virtual space can be used to alleviate physical space constraints for group collaboration in an urban academic library environment. Specifically, this paper looks to uncover whether library users will turn to library‐provided virtual space when there is a scarcity of physical space.

This project discusses the design of the physical and virtual environment, and then measures the use of this environment quantitatively over a 47‐month period (2005‐2009).

Results indicate that physical spaces for group collaboration are in very high demand, whereas virtual ones are not. A scarcity of physical collaboration spaces does not lead users to library‐provided virtual space, but rather to work around the scarcity in the physical world.

The paper highlights the value of the library as a gathering place and the ways in which virtual collaboration space cannot easily take the place of physical collaboration space.

Within the last decade the media's full potential has been its use as a tool for conception and production of new architecture. What is this new architecture? Is it is really new or it is just a term to describe a transitory fashion development similar to the short lived post-modern flirtations of the 80th? A quick view at some of the buildings being constructed today does certainly suggest that there is a totally different approach to the production and the resultant form of architecture.

Traditional methods of architecture conception are being replaced by digital media; a revolt, that many argue, has far-reaching inference in how the architectural entity is presented, recognized and practiced. More prominently, it proposes new formal possibilities absurd a decade ago. Architects working within this digital realm utilize CAD/Cam systems, CNC milling systems and software programs such as Maya, Form Z, and CATIA. Terms such as beauty, scale and proportion, used to describe the formal character of the pre-digital vernacular are being replaced by adjectives such as smooth, supple, and morphed, derived from the digital practice. The built result of such experiments are obvious the world over, whether it is Gehry's Philadelphia Music Hall, or Itto's new opera in Thailand, among others. The work of these architects was, a decade ago, confined to the virtual space of the computer, only seen in architectural magazines, viewed as a radical approach to architecture. However, the digital revolution has allowed for this vision to be transformed into reality. The use of digital tools both as a presentation tool and form generating device is unquestioned, a given, and will in the future consider any other traditional systems.

Spaces have gone from being a physical to virtual of a gigantic digital network of networks, which shapes our collective future. The way and pace at which we connect, communicate, memorize, imagine and control the flows of valuable information have changed forever. The paper also will introduce a new concept of virtual urban spaces and interaction between it and the physical urban environments.

The purpose of this paper is to define the Internet as a virtual space supported by technologies and presented in the form of socioeconomic relations from the perspective of political economy. The Internet space is a unique virtual commodity different from ordinary commodities and has the following effect characteristics: super replicability, space- and time-transcendence, open-source shareability and reality–virtuality transformation.

Internet space can also be imagined as a piece of virtual land. Internet space can be deemed as a piece of virtual land and its value can be divided into labor value and virtual value. The pricing model of virtual value is mainly determined by the gain and discount rate and this value comes from the transfer and markup of social value. In the context of the Internet Plus era, Internet space has become an essential economic factor that influences human economic activities.

Therefore, it is of practical significance and theoretical value to introduce Internet space as an economic variable into the framework of economic theory. The realistic logic of Internet space is to influence human economic behaviors with the combination of information binding.

The theoretical mechanism is to have an impact on the micro-market price by changing market relations from two-dimensional to three-dimensional. Its path to functioning at the macro level is to influence economic behaviors by changing the expectations of investment and consumption, resulting in new economic trends.

The emergence of new social media is shifting the market place for business towards virtual market space. In the light of the emerging digital space for new forms of marketing, the traditional servicescape concept is critically examined. This paper aims to show why servicescape concepts and attitudes need to be adapted for digital media.

First, the authors explain how the traditional servicescape concept adds meaning to a service provider’s value-proposition by modifying customer expectations and customer experience. Second, recognising that the environment for service is no longer bound to a physical place, the authors discuss the implications of the epistemic shift involved.

The authors’ examination shows that digital service space challenges traditional concepts about what constitutes a customer experience and derived value. The authors conceptually “zoom out” into a virtual service eco-system and show with exemplar examples why the servicescape in digital space is more socially embedded and necessarily more fluid in its time-space design. In the more advanced sites, interactions between various artificial bodies (avatars) are co-created by controlling off-line participant-actors; yet, these participant-actors remain strangers to each other at an off-line level. This is entirely a new and radical development of old times.

The research findings are based on scholarly research of the relevant literature, from practitioner reports, and evidence emerging from the examination of many digital web-sites. It has not been the authors’ intention to objectively represent current servicescape functionalities but more to indicate the major directions of change with exemplar examples. The future cannot be predicted, but their interpretive conclusions suggest major challenges in service marketing and management logic ahead. New forms of digital servicescape are still being created as technology and service imagination enables, so further research interest in virtual atmospherics can be expected.

Social media platforms are enabling organisations to learn more about their customers and also to engage them more. In these changing times, bricks and mortar stores would be well advised to review their servicescape presence to allow and encourage engagement with the more involved consumers. And, by integrating their digital space into their physical place, bricks and mortar stores might take on more relationship oriented process-like characteristics, both in the digital space and in their physical places, with developments on one platform leading to possible service innovations on the other.

The digital era is changing consumer behaviour. Service managers need to take into account that many customers are already equally as engaged with digital-space social networks as they once were with bricks and mortar stores. The more time consumers as participant-actors spend in social networks, the decision on what and where to buy is decided by interactions with friends and other influencers.

New forms of digital servicescape are being created as technology and service imagination enables. Further scholarly research interest in virtual atmospherics can be expected, impacting on the authors’ sense of place, and self-identity.

In the Transcendental Aesthetic part of the Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant stated the a priori necessity of the singularity of space that, “we can represent to ourselves only one space; and if we speak of diverse spaces, we mean thereby only parts of one and the same space … these parts cannot precede the one all‐embracing space … they can be thought only as in it”. If correct, Kant places a tight bound around the universe we consciously inhabit. Established arguments against Kant’s claims are reviewed and criticised based on the notion of dream spaces, before outlining the novel hypothesis that the widespread use of cyberspace and large scale multi‐user virtual realities illustrate public spaces beyond physical reality, and as such provide an empirical refutation of the a priori necessity of the singularity of space.

Cooperative knowledge spaces create new potentials for the experimental fields in natural sciences and engineering because they enhance the accessibility of experimental setups through virtual laboratories and remote technology, opening them for collaborative and distributed usage. A concept for extending existing virtual knowledge spaces for the means of the technological disciplines (“ViCToR‐Spaces” ‐ Virtual Cooperation in Teaching and Research for Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Engineering) is presented. The integration of networked virtual laboratories and remote experiments (“NanoLab Approach”), as well as an approach to community‐driven content sharing and content development within virtual knowledge spaces (NanoWiki) are described.

The purpose of this study is to explore the virtual space of the library and how it is part of the library building and many spaces offered. It inspects as well the work of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions’ section related to library buildings and equipment libraries can play if they are able to provide remote users education, which can help in fighting illiteracy and promote digital literacy.

The study adopted a structuralist approach from linguistics, sociology and anthropology to decorticate the concept of space. It favoured the literature review method, which was the most adequate approach for multidisciplinary results.

The study results indicate that the library virtual space became equally important as its physical spaces for our modern world and development. The significance of the virtual spaces is similar nowadays to the physical spaces of libraries as they allow for social integration and self-recognition.

The value of this study is uniquely exhaustive, as it highlights the value and significance of the library virtual space in the contemporary world, in comparison with the library physical spaces.

This study aims to propose a novel approach to developing an interactive and immersive virtual environment for design communication in the furniture, fixture and equipment (FFE) sector. The study further investigates its effectiveness in enhancing the design communication and coordination between the stakeholder.

Quasi-experimental research was adopted involving 12 FFE professionals, designers and end-users in single-group pre-test-post-test design. The tests were performed primarily to ascertain the impact of the application of interactive virtual reality on delivering furniture design selection and coordination tasks. Further interviews were used to elicit participants' views on the functionality and usefulness of the proposed approach.

The findings indicate that an interactive immersive virtual FFE environment: enhances the productivity of the design team through a collaborative virtual workspace offering a synchronised networked design testing and review platform; reduces the time required for the stakeholders to comprehend the design options and test those; enhances the design communication and quality of the design and encourages the collaborative culture in the industry; improves the design satisfaction of the stakeholders; and finally, requires significantly less time for design decision-making when compared to traditional methods.

Future studies should incorporate space planning concepts and explore non-experimental methodologies in a real-life FFE project setup.

The proposed approach provides opportunities for enhanced interpretation of design intent in FFE as well as efficiency in design selection and coordination tasks when compared with conventional two-dimensional methods of communication.

This study proposes a step change in the way furniture design is communicated and coordinated through an immersive virtual experience. Previous studies have not addressed the issue of impact on design coordination instead focussed on marketing and sales.

The purpose of this paper is to review the considerations necessary in developing modern library spaces.

Both internal and external segments of library space are analyzed from the positions of their physical availability to users, services offered and future prospects.

The findings indicate that the library space consists of two segments: internal and external. Internal space is physical space with traditional documents and services, and the external segment is physically intangible virtual space dealing with virtual services using electronic resources.

The two segments of library space have not previously been considered together in one paper. Also, virtual library resources and services, in respect of relating them to the certain segment of library space, have not been considered previously.

As traditional physical spaces grapple with evolving reading habits and information consumption patterns, the notion of libraries within the metaverse poses intriguing questions about accessibility, knowledge dissemination and the evolving role of librarians. The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of metaverse in virtual libraries.

This paper analyzes various literature relating to libraries and the metaverse in the virtual worlds through a review of the literature.

In the ever-evolving landscape of information and technology, the emergence of libraries in virtual worlds presents a transformative paradigm that brings forth both tremendous advantages and intricate challenges. These advantages are underscored by enhanced accessibility for a global audience, interactive engagements that cater to diverse learning styles and the unprecedented scalability that digital environments provide. Virtual libraries hold the potential to reshape the way people access, share and engage with knowledge, while also fostering a sense of community that transcends geographical boundaries.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the original idea that highlights the importance of metaverse in virtual libraries.