I work in a public library and I think its future development will be pinned on technologies. Our library is steering efforts for a smart library to deliver automated self-serve information services. Renovation works are being planned for automated facilities which will largely facilitate users’ efficient and flexible access to library materials. For example, they will be able to take reserved items during library closed hours. To tie in with the technological trend the library could employ artificial intelligence (AI) in optimising smart library services. I am fascinated to learn about the Helsinki’s new central library, Oodi (opened in 2018) which largely employed AI and automated systems. It uses robots to help kids learn to read, instruct users on using equipment such as 3D printers, giving directions and find books (Axelsson, 2019). I was overwhelmed at how technologies have transformed the information services.
Along this direction, it is time during renovation that our library to adopt more state-of-the-art technologies. This is in fact inevitable in developed places like Hong Kong where the birth rate has been declining. AI would be very helpful in supplementing manpower shortage in future. In addition to the above operational and customer service functions, AI can also be extended to human functions in social media (SM) networking. AI is now able to chat and recommend activities to improve users’ wellbeing (de Jesus, 2018). They could be leveraged on promoting library activities and collections in SM networking. Meanwhile, new technologies suggest that the future of social media will be more sensory-rich (Appel et al., 2020), therefore we should insert more augmented or virtual reality elements in our SM networking channels to bring visual richness to users (Perry, 2018).
With the advance of technologies, it is obvious that expectation on us as public library librarians would become higher in various aspects. First, as AI shared some handy work on information services, it is likely readers may have higher expectation from librarians to provide more in-depth advisory services, so we must advance our professional knowledge with untiring efforts. More importantly, we must advance our digital literacy skills to master and evaluate different types of AI and SM technologies for extending the service coverage. On the ethical side, we need to become ever prudent on the collection and use of readers’ personal data as massive volume of data can now be easily gathered through online services. Safeguarding readers’ interests become a prime yet challenging task particularly in a technological environment which requires our perseverance, vigilance and uncompromising efforts.
References
Appel, G., Grewal, L., Hadi, R. & Stephen, A. T. (2020). The future of social media in marketing. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 48(1), 79-95. doi:10.1007/s11747-019-00695-1
Axelsson, M. (2019). The little robot that lived at the library. Medium. https://towardsdatascience.com/the-little-robot-that-lived-at-the-library-90431f34ae2c
de Jesus, A. (2018). Chatbots for mental health and therapy – Comparing 5 current apps and use cases. Emerj Artificial Intelligence Research. https://emerj.com/ai-application-comparisons/chatbots-mental-health-therapy-comparing-5-current-apps-use-cases/
Perry, E. (2018). Meet HearMeOut: the social media platform looking to bring audio back into the mainstream. Social media week. https://socialmediaweek.org/blog/2018/05/meet-hearmeout-the-social-media-platform-looking-to-bring-audio-back-into-the-mainstream/