Data visualization and the problem with a virtual "library"

here is something that has been bothering me for awhile. I met with a client a number of months ago and they had an idea for virtual resource room. The topic was relevant because we are building an enterprise Virtual Reality environment for them. The resource room is to be designed to allow users to find documents, educational courses, and other reference material. The client in this case got excited and started to describe how cool it would be for the user to "walk into a virtual library lined with book shelves" that would enable them to "look" for information. Now 200 years ago, or whenever the "dooey"-decimal system was created, it was revolutionary. Now think about how it really plays out for the user: walk into a library, think about what it is you need to find, locate a card catalogue, search until you find the reference piece and corresponding number, find a map of the library, follow the map, hunt for the book, hopefully its in the right and place and not checked out. Now why on earth would we want to recreate the same inefficient process in VR? I say inefficient because compared to what we can do in VR, a traditional library architecture makes about as much sense as hitching a horse to car(Borat anyone?). the best VR solutions(and internet as well) are those that take advantage of the possibilities of the medium to enable what is not possible in any other medium.(this also include faster, better, cheaper). So the question on the table is: if a library construct is not the best way to help users find what they are looking for, then what is? I do not know the answer to this question, but I need to figure it out. The best I can do at the moment is to think about how my brains performs recall. Here is an example: I am at home and I need to find my shoes. I am not immediately sure where they are. When I start to think about it, I DO NOT, visualize a spreadsheet that has a line item for each possible location for my shoes. What I actually do is pop a 3D rendering of my house into my head, and with a birds eye view, I "see" that my shoes are by the front-door where I left them. so in one quick thought, I know where my shoes are, and how best to go and get them. how did my brain do that? Now shoes are easy, but what if I am trying to find a document on my hard drive? I do not visualize my hard drive. I do think about what the document was for and when I wrote it. when I shop on zappos for shoes, they very conveniently lead me down a path of what is available. In the wide world of Text/Data Mining/Analytics, we call this Guided Navigation. Now imagine that we apply the science of guided navigation to an avatar in a 3D immersive world......now we are getting somewhere. now think about grocery shopping. I usually have list, but I never order online. I go to the grocery store and walk the isles. Why? because I like to be visually reminded of things I might be interested in, but were not on my list. Quite often however what I might be inspired to buy has no relevance to what's on my list. I will take irrelevance out of focus if I am in a hurry. If I am not, I will allow myself to "see" seemingly irrelevant things along my path to completing the list. We can do this digitally as well: "show me only what I asked for" or "show me things along the way". Lets call this a relevance filter option. So, Guided Navigation + Relevance Filter + 3D Immersion = Guided Visualization? Guided Information Immersion? every great idea needs a great acronym. but that aside, hopefully you see where I am going with this