READ THIS…….
The Little Robot that Lived at the Library;
https://towardsdatascience.com/the-little-robot-that-lived-at-the-library-90431f34ae2c
Thank you Minja Axelsson! The Oodi Library in Helsinki that built an emotive robot library assistant. I want one.
The potential for the future of school libraries is immense. There are many ways in which we talk about integrating technologies into our teaching within the school library setting. Educating students about technologies, online environments, research skills, cyber safety etc. This is all essential and we are doing a great job of it. Keeping up with changes and giving our students the skills they might need for their futures in jobs that don’t even exist as yet. However, the reality of a teacher librarians’ (TL) role such as mine, is that 50% of my time is taken up with monotonous tasks such as re-shelfing, staking, covering, labelling and often a lot of foot work to retrieve things for people. What about allowing librarians to use their time for better use by having a robot do the menial tasks? The possibilities of having automated machine/robotics for certain tasks is so exciting in terms of the time this can free up for a TL.
I further researched robots in libraries to find out more about these wonderful creatures. There are about 10 libraries in Australia that use humanoid robots. Nguyen (2020) identified 4 themes in robot interaction in libraries through her study. Her analysis revealed in the studied settings that robots are considered as community builders, teachers, aids, and challengers. What a benefit for librarians and library users. It leaves the question; how else could they do support us? What else could they do? I am not an IT master or robot builder yet. However, could they also become storytellers? Help facilitate delivery of programs?
Personally there is no fear in ‘robots coming’ to take our jobs. More the better, I see this as something that compliments a librarian and attracts patrons.
There will always be need for human interaction. Robots are many things however, they don’t have human intelligence; experience, values, judgment.
Robots and machines have been present in many other industries for a long time. I feel excited about the opportunities that robots and other technologies can bring forth in the library and school library settings. We cannot fight progression but rather embrace it.
References
Axelsson, M. (2019). The Little Robot that Lived at the Library {Blog post}. https://towardsdatascience.com/the-little-robot-that-lived-at-the-library-90431f34ae2c
Nguyen, L, C. (2020). The Impact of Humanoid Robots on Australian Public Libraries. Journal of the Australian Library & Information Association, 69(2). 130-148.
https://web-p-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/ehost/results?vid=0&sid=8db50eae-33ee-4238-9384-af5c32e7e539%40redis&bquery=%28SO%2B%28Journal%2Bof%2Bthe%2BAustralian%2BLibrary%2Band%2BInformation%2BAssociation.%29%29AND%28DT%2B2020%29AND%28TI%2Bthe%2Bimpact%2Bof%2Bhumanoid%2Brobots%2Bon%2Baustralian%2Bpublic%2Blibraries%29&bdata=JmRiPWEyaCZ0eXBlPTEmc2VhcmNoTW9kZT1BbmQmc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZl
I too could see the benefits of the robot within the library setting, there are so many tasks that the robot could assist with. We already in many libraries have self-search and self-check out so how can these be any different to the robot in the Oodi library. We should embrace technology that brings people in and helps them connect to the library.