LIS 488 Section 2 - Fall 2006: You, Robot.

Libots. Or Robarians. Whichever it is, Chicago State University is about to unveil its new library. Which will, in part, be manned by robots. This morning a friend sent me the link to this blog - basically, the guy monitors the web for news of robots in regular life (not like Monster Robot Smash N' Crash). Here's the blog

Okay. So what's CSU even doing? They've decided to save space and librarian-time by storing about 850,000 volumes in 3 story high shelves of bins. The library hasn't gone completely robotic, though. 250,000 of the newer books will be on the regular shelves, browsable for students. As soon as I read this post, I was a bit freaked out - the robots will take over and then it'll be like Terminator, and then I'll have to get aviator sun glasses, do 4,000 pull-ups, and maybe look a little like Linda Hamilton...it could go either way... But then I decided two things: First, that the revolution isn't starting at the library, and second, that a librarian's time isn't best served retrieving books. As my relatives from Texas said when they found out I was going to library school, "You got to go to a special school to learn how to put a book away...?" Uh. No...? A librarian's time is most valuable when the infrastructure that they've developed is allowing them to consult with students, and besides - we're already using robots to digitize books. They're way more efficient than people, being able to scan upwards of 1,000 pages an hour. More on that.

But back to the robots...
So the robots actually work a bit like a computer. A student requests a book, the two robots take less than 35 seconds to find the book, and drop it in the bin, which is then available to the student. When the book is returned, the 'bot can just put it anywhere. It remembers. Kind of like a computer puts bits of files any old place, but remembers exactly where it put it. Organized chaos. Here's the cost breakdown: $36 million to build the library, and $1.7 to install the robot feature. According to the Dean, it would have cost around $6 million to create the extra ten stories needed to display the 850,000 other books in a traditional way. The obvious downside is that any loss of power or hardware issues could result in 850,000 inaccessible books, and since the order of the items is generated by the robots (Dewey who? LC what?), it would take a really, really long time to bring the books back to some recognizable order. Viva la revolucion!

Good overview found here

LIS 488 Section 2 - Fall 2006

You, Robot.

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