  While digital libraries offer essential benefits for the digital age such as
constant availability and accessibility, they often fail in providing a
similarly enjoyable browsing experience that benefits engagement and
serendipitous exploration inherent to traditional library experiences. In this
paper, we propose a virtual reality (VR) library environment that emulates a
traditional library promoting an engaging browsing experience that benefits
browsing enjoyment and serendipity. The implemented system uses procedural
content generation to dynamically generate a library-like environment, wherein
each room corresponds to a specific category of the digital library. To assess
the usability of the implemented system, we conducted an A-B study comparing
the VR environment with the web interface of Project Gutenberg. The results of
the study suggest that while the physical demand for using the VR environment
is higher, the system can significantly benefit the browsing experience and
entice users curiosity. Furthermore, the study suggests that the system can
increase user engagement and users generally felt that using the system was
rewarding.
