Slashdot | Marian The Robot Librarian

Marian The Robot Librarian

Posted by michael on Saturday July 24, @11:20
from the dept.
nusratt writes 'BBC reports on robotics researchers in Spain, who have developed a prototype which can retrieve books from library shelves while patrons are present. 'When it receives a request for a book, its voice recognition software matches the titles with the book's classification code to identify which bookshelf stack to go to. The robot navigates its way to the bookshelf, using its infrared and laser guidance system, and scans books within a four-metre radius. Once the book is located, it has to grasp it and take it off the bookshelf, which is not a simple as it might seem. For this, the team had to develop special fingertips like nails, with one nail longer than the other. 'For me that was the hardest part. All the other things were current state of the art technology,' said Professor Pobil.' The article also discusses using robots to assist in digitizing library materials.' "

My take:
...
Library shmyberry ! (Score:1)
by oldfox (799873) on Sunday July 25, @11:05PM (#9798064)
(http://oldfox.info/)
If true, this is merely an eccentric invention. Certainly nothing to do with librarianship, categorization of information, or research.
1. The sole purpose of the costly and time consuming task of assigning call numbers to books is to enable browsing the shelves for similar materials. In libraries with closed stacks, where pages, runners, or even robots, pull books by request of the reader (such as the Library of Congress, the British Library, the NYPL on 5th Ave.) there is no point at all in putting on call numbers. In fact it's a complete waste of money.

2. Amazon does not assign call numbers and it doesn't need them to pull a book. Amazon does not have a cataloging backlog like every library does. Every book has an ISDN number today and every book, journal, serial and monograph retailed today has a bar code on the wrapper.

3. This is really of value (if it works at all) as an order fulfillment system in any warehouse. I would venture to suggest that FedEx, UPS, DHL, most any mail order business and even the postal service have developed better ways of order-picking, retrieving a uniquely numbered item than using voice recognition (for an infinite number of different speakers) and a dinky robot running up and down the stacks.

No wonder Spain is so little known for it's brain surgery, rocket science, or advanced technology.