David Daghita at McKinney PL shared these presentations about new tech innovations with me via former #hyperlib student Nick. One covers the implementation of the mobile roaming in the library and the other is on using ROBOTS as book carts! Take a look if you have time.
Inspiration: Robots from Texas
Written by Michael Stephens
Hushed
- Tina Zhen
- Karla Velazquez
Hushed
- Tina Zhen
- Karla Velazquez
Thumbs
- Jeanne Evangelista
- Victoria Prieto
Hushed
- Tina Zhen
- Karla Velazquez
Hushed
- Tina Zhen
- Karla Velazquez
Hushed
- Tina Zhen
- Karla Velazquez
Thumbs
- Jeanne Evangelista
- Victoria Prieto
Thumbs
- Jeanne Evangelista
- Victoria Prieto
Hushed
- Tina Zhen
- Karla Velazquez
8 thoughts on “Inspiration: Robots from Texas”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
I’d be very interested to hear from patrons and staff about what value they see these robots adding to their library experiences. I just can’t imagine this working well in my (relatively small, admittedly) local library. Curious what others think!
@lauraskor I totally agree. I think that would be very interesting to actually understand what the staff in the public think.
@lauraskor I am also very curious about this, especially since the “Robot Improvements” slide doesn’t mention patrons or feedback at all. Based on a local news interview with the director, it sounds like a more top-down decision: “You’ve probably seen them around at restaurants delivering food to people. It’s the OrionStar robot. We thought, ‘Hey, that’s really interesting and neat.’” (I’d link to this but every time I try posting with the link it doesn’t go through; hoping this posts now that I’ve removed it.) Only a handful of Google reviews mention the robots and half of them describe the robots more as fun novelties than as helpful resources (e.g., “I’m not exactly sure what they’re doing, but definitely really cool touch,” and “The robots were roboting ig?”). It makes me think more about how libraries can balance wanting to be a pioneer and responding to actual user needs and feedback.
@anitayjc I appreciate your thoughtful comment here. And I agree: it’s hard to tell how much the public was involved in the process to have the robots in the library. At the national library of Australia, they use robots to deliver books from the stacks to visitors who are in the public spaces of the library. That makes a lot of sense to me. There was a time when these resources shared above tapped into sort of the robot Zeitgeist everybody was talking about robots at that time and that could mean why a handful of libraries and other entities suddenly were purchasing robots. I think I posted somewhere that I attended a meditation session at library conference that was led by humans, but a robot led the meditation. I recall that some of the libraries in the Scandinavian countries were also early adopters of robots for various tasks. I don’t know where that stands today.
I think using these robots as book carts is a really interesting idea. I use to work in circulation and sometimes regular book carts were difficult to maneuver if they were older or filled with books. They also took up a lot of space, especially if they were left at the end of book shelves for patrons to leave unwanted books. I can see these robots being helpful tools for staff who have trouble pushing a book cart, as well as a fun addition that can catch patrons eyes and help guide them to shelf locations and take their unwanted books back to the circulation desk.
I like this use of robots as book carts that help save library staff some, not all, tedious manual labor. I remember reading about more complex and expensive robot shelving solutions (https://www.libraryjournal.com/story/high-tech-shelf-help-singapores-library-robot) but this application seems to have relatively low barriers to entry and immediately useful. The public may also recognize these robots from restaurants where they’re used to deliver food and drinks and have a positive/neutral reaction to them. Not all robots are welcome (I’m thinking of the food delivery robots roaming on the streets of Los Angeles, which I hate to see coming as pedestrian or driver) but these library book carts seem minimally invasive and helpful for library users and staff.
What an interesting idea, I think this can be helpful at some libraries. Now that it’s been in use for a few years, I am also interested in what staff and patrons think of these. Would be interesting to see if there have been improvements on their original design.
I took a look at their website and long range plan. In the information technology section, the plan mentions robotics:
Provide improved wayfinding solutions using
technology such as augmented reality or
robotic guides by October 2026- $$$.
I also saw mention of a partnership with a robotics company in that part of Texas. I will try to find out more.