A review of Augmented Reality and its application in context aware library system

Augmented Reality has revolutionized the way of looking at actuality. The colossal developments in this area have led to visualizations beyond desktop. Unreal objects can be augmented on real surfaces. Augmented Reality has converged the knowledge of computer vision, virtual reality, image-processing, human-to-computer interaction and more such areas. It has found applications in various expanses like Games, Entertainment, Military, Navigation and many more. One such application could be in Library Management System. Earlier systems for book tracking involved immobile computers that only had the shelf numbers nested with book id to locate a book. A borrower needed to ask the Librarian/support staff to look up the shelf number from the system so as to find a book or simply do it manually by himself by searching each shelf. The application of Augmented Reality in Library Administration is useful in automating the proximity location tracking of a book and providing alternatives to the borrower in the books context. The borrower is navigated through the library till he/she reaches the shelf where the book is kept. The spine of the book serves as the index of the required book and contextual information is augmented once the book is located. Thus Augmented Reality can prove immensely helpful for Library Administration.