The Automated Library Robot
August 11, 2016
Libraries have evolved from centers that allow people to borrow books and conduct research to a one-stop shop for Internet usage. People love to say that libraries are useless and only archive outmoded knowledge, but they still provide useful services for people and cannot be easily replicated with a machine. Science Daily shares that “High-Tech Librarian Knows Its Books” and relates how robotics are entering libraries.
No, an automated machine is not replacing librarians, but one of the biggest problems that libraries face are disorderly books. It is the bane of libraries everywhere and it makes librarians want to weep when a clean, orderly shelf is messed up within minutes by a lackadaisical hands. It takes a lot of hours and staff to keep shelves in order, time that could be better spent doing something else:
“At A*STAR’s Institute for Infocomm Research, researchers Renjun Li, Zhiyong Huang, Ernest Kurniawan, and Chin Keong Ho are designing robots that can relieve librarians of many menial tasks, while enhancing searching and sorting of books. Their latest project is an autonomous robotic shelf scanning (AuRoSS) platform that can self-navigate through libraries at night, scanning RFID tags to produce reports on missing and out-of-sequence books.”
Taking away this task will save some time and even locate missing materials with (perhaps) more accuracy than a human. Robots will not be destroying this sacred institution of knowledge, only improving it. Budget crunches are a bigger problem for libraries than being replaced by robots.
Whitney Grace, August 11, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
There is a Louisville, Kentucky Hidden /Dark Web meet up on August 23, 2016.
Information is at this link: https://www.meetup.com/Louisville-Hidden-Dark-Web-Meetup/events/233019199/
Libraries Failure to Make Room for Developer Librarians
October 23, 2015
The article titled Libraries’ Tech Pipeline Problem on Geek Feminism explores the lack of diverse developers. The author, a librarian, is extremely frustrated with the approach many libraries have taken. Rather than refocusing their hiring and training practices to emphasize technical skills, many are simply hiring more and more vendors, hardly a solution. The article states,
“The biggest issue I see is that we offer a fair number of very basic learn-to-code workshops, but we don’t offer a realistic path from there to writing code as a job. To put a finer point on it, we do not offer “junior developer” positions in libraries; we write job ads asking for unicorns, with expert- or near-expert-level skills in at least two areas (I’ve seen ones that wanted strong skills in development, user experience, and devops, for instance).”
The options available are that librarians either learn to code in their spare time (not viable), or enter the tech workforce temporarily and bring your skills back after a few years. This option is also full of drawbacks, especially that even white women are marginalized in the tech industry. Instead, the article stipulates the libraries need to make more room for hiring and promoting people with coding skills and interests while also joining the coding communities like Code4Lib.
Chelsea Kerwin, October 23, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Bodleian Library Gets Image Search
August 3, 2015
There is a lot of free information on the Internet, but the veracity is always in question. While libraries are still the gateway of knowledge, many of their rarer, more historic works are buried in archives. These collections offer a wealth of information that is often very interesting. The biggest problem is that libraries often lack the funds to scan archival collections and create a digital library. Oxford University’s Bodleian Library, one of the oldest libraries in Europe, has the benefit of funds and an excellent collection to share with the world.
Digital Bodleian boasts over 115,179 images as of writing this article, stating that it is constantly updating the collection. The online library takes a modern approach to how users interact with the images by taking tips from social media. Not only can users browse and search the images randomly or in the pre-sorted collections, they can also create their own custom libraries and sharing the libraries with friends.
It is a bold move for a library, especially for one as renowned as Bodleian, to embrace a digital collection as well as offering a social media-like service. In my experience, digital library collections are bogged down by copyright, incomplete indices or ontologies, and they lack images to perk a users’ interest. Digital Bodleian is the opposite of many of its sister archives, but another thing I have noticed is that users are not too keen on joining a library social media site. It means having to sign up for yet another service and also their friends probably aren’t on it.
Here is an idea, how about a historical social media site similar to Pinterest that pulls records from official library archives? It would offer the ability to see the actual items, verify information, and even yield those clickbait top ten lists.
Whitney Grace, August 3, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
The Public Living Room
June 6, 2015
While much of the information that libraries offer is available via the Internet, many of their services are not. A 2013 Gallup survey showed that over 90 percent of Americans feel that libraries are important to their communities. The recent recession, however, forced local governments to cut library funding by 38 percent and the federal government by 19 percent. Some library users see the “public living room” (a place to read, access computers, research, play games, etc.) as a last bastion for old technology and printed material.
Alternet’s article. “Why Libraries Matter More Than Ever In The Age Of Google” highlights a new book by John Palfrey called BiblioTech that discusses how libraries can maintain their relevancy and importance in communities. Palfrey’s biggest argument is that humans are creating huge amounts of data, which is controlled by big and small tech companies. These companies are controlling what information is available for consumption, while libraries offer people the ability to access any type of information and free of charge.
Palfrey offers other reasons to continue using libraries: print and ink archives are more reliable than digital, how physical, communal space is important for communities and education, and how librarians are vital components.
“These arguments, however, rely too heavily on the humans-are-better-than-technology rationale where “better” is measured by technological rather than humanistic standards. If librarians have a higher success rate than Amazon’s algorithm at recommending books, this might not be true forever. Does that mean we won’t need librarians at some point? No, the dilemma of disappearing libraries is not just about efficiency, it’s also about values. Librarians recommend books because they are part of a community and want to start a discussion among the people they see around them—to solve the world’s problems, but also just to have a conversation, because people want to be near each other. The faster technology improves and surpasses human capability, the more obvious it becomes that being human is not merely about being capable, it’s about relating to other humans.”
Palfrey’s views are described as ideological and in many ways they are. Politicians cut funding, because they view libraries as archaic institutions and are blinded when it comes to the inequity when it comes to information access. Libraries indeed need a serious overhaul, but unlike the article explains, it is not simply updating the buildings and collections. It runs more along the lines of teaching people the importance of information and free information access.
Whitney Grace, June 7, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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