Semester in Alternate Realities: Semester in Dialogue Library resources

Fraser Library welcomes students in the Semester in Dialogue to SFU Surrey. This guide will help you to use our library to find and evaluate research material for your projects. If you have any further questions about library services, please Ask a Librarian!

Books

To find ebooks, print books, journals, articles, background sources, and more, search the SFU Library Catalogue

If you're new to searching all of our Library resources, start with the Library Catalogue search guide.

To look for relevant resources more systematically, try searching using these subject headings related to virtual reality: (To search for books by subject heading, use the Browse Search option in the SFU Library Catalogue, then select Subject browse from the drop-down menu.)

If the item is not available at Fraser Library, or is out on loan, please request it

Book covers by ISBNs: 9783642233630 9781138233959 9781484227091 9781101983713 981-10-5490-8 9780393253696 9780199826162 9781498534284 9781628921472 9781351395120 3-642-45432-1 1-59147-031-5 9780415624442 9781433135606 9781107128828

Journal articles and databases

All print and electronic journals subscribed to by the SFU Library are listed in the Catalogue. You can look up journals by title and search for articles in them.

Suggested journals for virtual reality 

Connect to Article databases to find articles in academic journals, trade magazines, reports and newspapers, as well as financial and statistical data. Many databases provide online access to the full text of the articles or allow you to directly request copies of articles.

Suggested article databases for virtual reality 

ACM Digital Library
Journals, conference proceedings, and technical reports published by the Association for Computing Machinery.

IEEE Electronic Library 
Books, journals, conference proceedings, and standards published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET). 

LinkedIn Learning
Thousands of in-depth step-by-step video tutorials, taught by experts, on software development, design practices, business skills, web development, and photography.

Web of Science
Excellent multidisciplinary source. References thousands of social science and humanities journals in addition to science journals. 

LearnTechLib: The Learning and Technology Library
Covers educational technology and e-learning. 

Frost & Sullivan 
In-depth market research and strategy reports of emerging technologies. For example, see the report on Augmented and Virtual Reality in Healthcare. (Access to PDF download available upon request. See database description for more details.) 

Statista 
A simple to use statistics portal that integrates statistics from thousands of sources. For example, see a sample of results for virtual reality.

Philosopher's Index
Journal articles, books, and contributions from anthologies in all areas of philosophy research.

PsycInfo
Articles, books, book chapters, technical reports, and theses and dissertations in the field of psychology and the psychological aspects of other disciplines. 

Try using the same subject terms as suggested for books. You can also check the thesaurus or list of subject terms within the database. For help with searching databases, check Finding Journal Articles and/or Moving From Citation to Article.

For books and articles not online or at SFU, request an Interlibrary Loan.

Selected internet sources

Governments, research institutes, non-profit organizations, industry and other associations and companies all have web sites - many with publications freely available.

Use Google or Google Scholar  to find additional information, including the web sites of interest groups and other organizations. See Finding and evaluating resources for additional help.

Internet sources for virtual reality 

Virtual reality: the essentials
Video course loaded with information about VR development. 
Note: SFU students have access to this resource via Safari Books Online. You will be prompted to enter your SFU email address to gain access to this resource.

SFU iSpace  
The SFU iSpace Research Lab investigates what con­sti­tutes effec­tive, robust, and intu­itive human spa­tial ori­en­ta­tion and behav­iour in computer-mediated environments. Also check out their YouTube playlist

MIT Media Lab blog
The MIT Media Lab's mission is to anticipate and create technologies that make our lives safer, cleaner, healthier, fairer, and more productive. Their blog is full of interesting articles relating to cutting-edge technology.

VR/AR at MIT blog 
Features interesting talks on the topic of VR. 

MIT "Hacking XR" resources and blog 
Check out the blog and resource page for a course that ran out of MIT entitled, “Hacking XR Virtual Reality and Immersive Media Production”.  

Research guides for related subjects

Research guides are produced by SFU liaison librarians to point you to the best external sources as well as providing information about publications available in the library. Try these guides for further suggestions:

Writing and citing

University Reading and Writing
Sources in the library that will help you write better papers, or check out Writing for University and the writing hand-outs from the Student Learning Commons.

Writing and Style Guides
Will tell you how to cite your sources properly.

Plagiarism
Will tell you what plagiarism is and how to avoid it. Take the interactive tutorial Understanding and Avoiding Plagiarism to test yourself and learn more.

Citation or reference management tools
Collect your journal article, book, or other document citations together in one place, and help you create properly formatted bibliographies in almost any style — in seconds. Citation management tools help you keep track of your sources while you work and store your references for future use and reuse.

Ask us!

If you would like any further assistance or information about the library or your research, don't hesitate to Ask a Librarian.