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Remote-Controlled Robot Could Browse The Stacks
An anonymous reader writes "A Japanese team of researchers has developed a robot that could help browse for books in a library by receiving instructions via the Internet, a team member said Friday. The robot, a wheeled vehicle measuring 50 by 45 centimeters with a digital camera, mechanical hand and arm, follows orders received through the Internet." This reminds me somewhat of Sonoma State University's (quite different) system profiled a few years ago in Wired.
Great idea, but grad students are still cheaper. :)
RD
Scan the books into computers (or itself), and then we have no more need for the actual book.
...and that's how it begins
And I thought I was cool when I found my book using the Dewey Decimal System :-)
a thousand robots at a thousand typewriters in a thousand years could reproduce the works of Shakespeare, but now its just a lot quicker to pull it up.
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
You can pay them much less and they could be more attractive!
There wouldn't be any librarian action figures with hot shushing action!
s hushing_action.php
http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2003/10/09/hot_
meep
Do I get a little readout that says:
Result 1 of about 3. Search took 25 minutes
yes, it saves you a little bit of trouble, but you'd still have to *read* the book. I want a robot that will learn for me.
If I know the title and author of the book I'm looking for, I can find it just as easily, and odds are I can outrun this little robot. Now, if I ask the robot a question (IE, What causes Parkinson's Disease?) and it brings me back the most relevant book on that question, that'd be awesome.
That's interesting. I love browsing for books... walking along the racks just looking at the titles and picking out those which sound interesting. Only problem, you're walking with your head tilted, which gets sore after a few minutes.
It'd be cool to have the robot walk along and you'd see the image rotated 90 degrees, and the tiles scrolling by. Heck it'd be nice to get that on a video at the end of the aisle so you wouldn't have to go into the crowded aisle itself.
Libraries are where RFID tags will really shine. The robot wouldn't need a camera, just run run along the shelf with a sensor until it picks up the right tag. As for placing a book in the wrong place, smart bookshelves that read the RFID and record all the books that are there, and report any that are out of place.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
Does it tiptoe about going
when it's not looking for a book?What about a pair of hornrimmed batgirl glasses with nice shiny chain, does it have that?
Can it read me a story, and make me think I'm there?
If not, it's not a proper librarian in my book.
Hmm, OTOH I'm thinking this whole robot thing may be going somewhere, after all.
sigs, as if you care.
Why is it important to stress that the robot receives orders through the Internet?
If you read the article (which is only two paragraphs long, is it too much to ask people to read a two paragraph article?), you find it was designed to be used by people who cannot physically access the library. The robot finds the books, opens the books, flips through pages and sends the images back over the internet to the person who for some reason is housebound. That person can then request the book be sent to them. So yeah, the internet plays an important role here.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
Bah! In my day, we actually read the books...and we LIKED it!
More details here: original pdf, converted html.
Somebody took first place at the National Grammer Rodeo in Canada. ::Looks around as nobody understands the reference::
...wish you would stop with the robot stories! They're never gonna forget this damn cliche! AAARGH!
"Verbing weirds language." -- Calvin
I don't know why I know this, but I read an article sometime ago about a similar thing.. I found a linke o/robo t.html
http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/audio-vid
Enjoy!
I love robots (i work in robotics), but this is a waste. Clearly, digitizing the text is a faster and easier solution. A clever hack at CMU for such a project was used to solve the problem of turning pages. Pull too hard, and the page rips. Push and more than one page goes for the ride. Solution: silly (or thinking) putty! It sticks to the page perfectly, i.e. it lets go when it should. This is an example of coming up with a solution to a given problem. A mobile robot that needs to perceive its environment, make local decisions, take up space, incur battery power, etc. is just making more problems and solving nothing. It is creating problems, though you get some wow-effects along the way.
Robo-Blogs of the world: UNITE!
There have been a lot of alarming robot related stories on slashdot lately! Thankfully, I just renewed my Old Glory insurance policy with a robot plan. you should to! When the robots grab you with thier metal claws you cant break free, because they're made of metal and robots are strong.
*WARNING: Persons denying the existance of robots may be robots themselves.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
The real reason for building this robot was to catch students making out in the basment. (most libraries' stacks are in the basement where the lights are low and access is limited to staff and few lucky/adventurous types) :)
When I was in HS I worked at a library and stacks was my favorite area. One time I heard noise in the far corner and went to investigate. I was clumsy stepped on something on the way there - really cute catholic schoolgirl and my metalhead friend (who also worked there) emerged. Needless to say, both looked embarrassed. They made up some lame excuse and left. Now if I had that robot, I probably would have had the whole thing on tape
1. All the good stuff is in the basement.
2. Catholic schoolgirls are WAY pervy.
3. Women are turned ON more if there's a chance of getting caught.
4. Having long hair and playing metal in your car could actually get you laid! (in the 80s)
"Today, the Authors Guild is saying that the publishers don't have the right to let Amazon do this." -- Slashdot, Oct 25, 2003 - Amazon's Book Search Hits a Snag
Why speculate when we know the answer?
But then again, I could be wrong.
The fact that standard organisational systems (Dewey or Library of Congress)are employed in all university libraries makes the job so much easier.
If you want to find research materials on North American Indians of the Plains. Instead of looking in a card catalogue, you would get yourself up to the "E" Stacks and roam around the 78's to 99's. Easy.
Sometimes, I think that Librarians have more to tell us about organising information than we have to tell them.
Lets just assume that each book has say...500 pages. Now, thats 500 million pages to be scanned, even moving at the rate of a page a second, the equates to roughly 951 years.
I am that much more enlightened and proportionally disillusioned
Program it to read all of the books and upload them to an online server.
Then it can retire and take up a hobby, like infinite looping or virus collecting.
Around the sixties, the Library of the Delft University of Technology had a "bibliofoon" system, where people could find the books they want in a catalog and then enter their number in the ordering system. A red light would start burning at the right shell, and personnel would start taking the order.
:-) Must have been marvellous.
Once arrived at the right spot, they would get the ordered book and put it on a large spiral slide that was central to the building. This slide was connected to a sliding table ("lopende band", how does that translate?) which ended up in the catalog room, so that people could take their books and check them out.
The most fun part about this system was that people would keep the slide clean by simply taking a slide
"We can confirm that Debian does *not* ship the version with the trojan horse. Our version predates it." [CA-2002-28]
My thoughts,
1. I never could argue with that cute pencil-chewing librarian who would occasionally look over the horn-rimmed glasses. (Wish I still had her number *cry*)
2. I could never argue with a robot that zoommed around picking up stuff.
Now, in reality, The idea of a robot zooming around picking up stuff, ultimately controlled by a librarian just rocks.
For any system to work this way, it would have to be in collaboration with librarians. The Sonoma Library is a pretty cool concept. Having books lost for 2 decades is not. Personally I have found that running around a library for 2 hours trying to find a book that should be in place X (according to Dewey) is really lame. Some students have more important things to do, like post on Slashdot while putting off writing that 15 page paper on why the FCC should keep Amateur Radio around...
Sheesh, which is worse: lazy work-study students that don't reshelve properly, or a university administration that holds lavish parties for professors with huge salaries, but doesn't hire more than one 1/4-time shelf-reader at a time?