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Robots Retrieve Your Books At U. Chicago's $81 Million Library
kkleiner writes "The University of Chicago's new $81 million Joe and Rika Mansueto Library is being referred to as the library of the future. You enter the library and find there are hardly any books, just a large reading room with computers. The library's 3.5 million books are stored inside 35,000 bins stacked within 50 foot tall racks in a massive 5-story chamber underneath the library. When you ask for a book an automated retrieval system involving huge, computer-activated robotic cranes finds the book you want, delivers it to the circulation desk, and eventually puts it back underground when you return it." The age of the personal-shopping library robot is getting closer and closer.
It's called a Kindle...
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
We have had one of those at Sonoma State University for about 10 years now.
Robots are cool.
Wandering the stacks and reading random books is fun.
Going to the location of a book and looking at the books around it for other options is a necessity.
But what I enjoy about say, going to one of the many libraries that my school operates - is having a list of a few books I want to check out, and browsing around where those books are found, finding additional books on the subject. This helps me find further research sources. I'm not sure how common that would be in all programs, but in History, it's quite a bit beneficial, or at least it has been for me...
It is very cool, but come on! People are struggling to afford college for their kids, and universities waste money like this?! Sorry, we have to raise tuition another 5%, we have to pay off this robotic library. And people complain about the oil companies...
This system caters to the individual who knows exactly which book they want, but what about us who like to have an idea, go to the section and browse around? I have frequently gone to the library with a vague idea of what I'm looking for and leaving with books for that topic, related topics and often just something that caught my eye. This "progress" undermines a lot of the value that a library presents.
Besides, if I know exactly what I want, I can use my computer and Amazon to get most things without being inconvenienced with leaving my home or office.
The library cost a hefty $81 million, but the alternative was expanding the old library's capacity - and that was estimated at $67 million. So for $14 million, the university gets a brand new library with all the prestige and sex appeal of this new, high-tech approach with lower operating costs to boot. And anyway, the library's namesakes donated $25million, an amount that was probably increased by the prospect of the donator's getting to slap their name all over this exciting new building. What I'm saying is that this was a no-brainer for the university in terms of cost/benefit.
Now, whether you want to trade a building full of beautiful old books which you can peruse at your own convenience, and staffed with generally knowledgeable bibliophiles, for a mechanized building with 5-minute delay times on book requests and far fewer human employees... that's not so straightforward I hope.
Hey mate, spare a sig?
My alma mater (California State University, Northridge) has had one of these for over 15 years (http://library.csun.edu/About/ASRS). Sure it's cool, but why do we care? It's nothing new or groundbreaking.
Programmer: an ingenious device that converts caffeine into code.
Indeed the long run the robotic library will be cheaper. My alma mater started construction on one just before I graduated and I heard a librarian talking about the new design. Robotic libraries allow a higher packing density (more books per cubic meter), save on climate control (no need to compensate for opening / closing doors, it's underground so well insulated, no windows), require far fewer lights (robots can work in the dark), reduce the number of employees needed to staff the place (a + or - depending on your point of view) among many other long-term cost-savings.
As someone who's spent a lifetime in books, much of it spent in the University of Chicago's Regenstein as a matter of fact, I used to be a firm believer in the supremacy of physical books.
My mother-in-law sent me a very nice eBook reader, and little by little I've really come to appreciate it. I can even take eBooks out of the public library.
It's no good for musical scores, and I can't read it in bed with the lights low so I don't disturb my wife (eInk is not backlit), but I was shocked at how quickly the whole electronic reader thing became invisible to me and all I saw in front of me was the book. I've actually reached up to turn a page more than once before realizing all I had to do was thumb a little button.
At less than $100 (I have a nook and my daughter has a Kobo which she bought for $69 at a Borders that was closing.
I am extremely uncomfortable with the notion that eBooks will put my local bookseller out of business though. His recommendations are valued by me and he has never failed to get me those hard-to-find items I occasionally want. But I get the feeling the big chains are more of a danger to his business than eBooks. Many people will still prefer handling real books. I won't miss Borders and Barnes and Noble and other huge chains though.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Will be installed in your head at birth, and updated either on a schedule or manually, as you desire.
Unless all available storage and bandwidth are taken up with virus definitions, that is.
It is very cool, but come on! People are struggling to afford college for their kids, and universities waste money like this?! Sorry, we have to raise tuition another 5%, we have to pay off this robotic library. And people complain about the oil companies...
You have got to be kidding. This is exactly what Universities should be doing. Finding ways to preserve knowledge and make it available to whomever wants it. Until everything is digitized, this is a perfect way to make those books available in an as efficient a way possible. The students at the U of C are not about getting good grades and passing courses to get good jobs. They are about discovering and creating and investigating things that no one else has thought of yet. It's a research institution, not a tech school. And I wish we had more like it.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
When manufacturing jobs started disappearing the comments from many were that everything was ok and that service related jobs would take their place, now the service related jobs seem to be going away too (McDonalds last week announced it was replacing cashiers with touch screen kiosks in 40,000 restaurants). What happens now? While I like progress and advancement in technology, it just doesn't seem to be very well thought out, if you eliminate jobs in the name of efficiency eventually you also end up eliminating a sizable portion of the customer base. You can have 100% efficiency but if there is no one left who can afford to buy what your selling your business is going to fail.
Because Sarah Palin, that's why. Because Glenn Beck. Because Creationist Museums where people ride their pet dinosaurs. Because a large chunk of the US actually got excited about the world ending last Saturday. Because .02 cents is not .02 dollars. Because we're fighting two majors wars and a skirmish in three countries most US citizens can't find on a map.
Because everyone gets to vote. Everyone needs to go to college?! If I had my way, college would be free and citizenship would require degrees in history, economics and science. Why on Earth wouldn't we want the electorate in charge of the largest supply of nuclear weapons on the planet to be as well educated as possible?
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
Old days:
Step 1: slip into the library bored on a friday night
Step 2: go find books on nuclear weapons, magic mushrooms, bizarre sex acts, medical anomalies, etc. read to your hearts content.
New days:
Step 1. login with your government provided username and password
Step 2. click on the warning notice that says all your activity is monitored and unauthorized activity will be punished
Step 3. search for stuff.
Step 4. try to tell yourself that everything you search for is not being stored in some database somewhere. even though it is.
Step 5. try to tell yourself that the government needs a warrant to pull your records. even though it doesn't.
Step 6. try to tell yourself that the library administrators and university bosses didn't get any kickbacks from the IT vendor, and that the process was fair, efficient, and put the needs of the students first. even though it didn't.
Step 7. search for a book on how the US has become an emasculated, impotent group of yes men and intellectual cowards
That's awfully convenient... for pretty much everyone but the students who need to browse through the stacks to do their research.
The ability to browse is the reason I still go to bookstores and libraries, even though almost every book you'd ever want is available online.
If you're browsing through stacks still, in this day and age, you're doing it wrong. In a world of databases and search functions, it's much more efficient to browse electronically, and request all the books you think are worth investigating. A well written search function, including related books (users who requested this book also requested X) would be much more useful than each individual having to manually perform the same search that 5,10,100 other people might have done.