Abstract: [Purpose/Significance] As China has become a country with an increasing number of old people, public libraries, as a public cultural service organization, are under increasing pressure to provide service to the aged readers, and the problem of the service for the aged readers needs to be solved urgently. China is vigorously promoting the application of VR technology in various industries, and has put forward the requirement of promoting the use of intelligent technology by the elderly. Therefore, VR technology will be specifically applied to the service for the elderly readers, It has become a new breakthrough direction to improve the service level of public libraries, and also provides a new idea for the research of reader service of public libraries. [Method/Process] Based on the concrete practice of the service for the elderly in public libraries, this paper starts from the two aspects of the software and hardware of the service for the elderly, and takes fully into account the physiological and psychological characteristics of the elderly readers. It analyzes the specific problems of public libraries in the service for the aged readers. It is found that the lack of hardware facilities in public libraries mainly includes space design, technical equipment, venue environment, and collection resources, while the lack of software construction mainly refers to service and staff. In this paper, by combining the specific VR technologies with the service facilities, environment, resources and services for the aged readers of public libraries, the authors put forward some ideas on the hardware and software of public libraries, commented on the specific technical features of VR technology which are combined with the existing problems of the service for the aged readers, and discussed the characteristics of the aged group. [Results/Conclusions] The study found that, by applying VR technologies such as dynamic environment modeling, behavior modeling, natural interaction, stereoscopic display and sensor technology, speech recognition and speech synthesis, and creating virtual library, the old readers get familiar with the venue, and VR technology provides resources search and display services, technical equipment training services, interactive communication services, simulation of offline events services and a series of other services. In this paper, VR technology is connected with the elderly readers, which meets the requirements of promoting the elderly to use intelligent technology in China, and provides reference for the elderly reader service in public libraries. It also provides some theoretical support for the later research and practice. In addition, this paper did not study the specific practice of public library services for the elderly, and the following research from this perspective can be carried out.

Key words: VR, aging society, elderly reader service, public library, public cultural services