From: "Hamill, Cheryl" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2012 17:22:55 +0800
If just projecting a few common messages is called for, perhaps a
holographic librarian? Not as smart but could be helpful for getting
through a few regularly updated messages.
http://www.hospital-bulletin.co.uk/features/News/healthcaremessaging.htm
Cheryl Hamill | Librarian in Charge | Fremantle Hospital and Health
Service | SMAHS
Department of Health
FREMANTLE WA 6169
E: [log in to unmask]
www.fhhs.health.wa.gov.au/library
-----Original Message-----
From: LibLicense-L Discussion Forum
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Sent: Thursday, 1 March 2012 09:12
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Subject: Re: Should every library have one of these ?
From: "Peter B. Hirtle" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 29 Feb 2012 21:11:16 +0000
You might be interested in an interview with the developer of Xiaotu
and an assessment of the software that was recently posted in the
Cornell Library staff newsletter:
http://www.library.cornell.edu/staffweb/kaleidoscope/volume20/december2011.html#meetxiaotu.
Peter Hirtle
-----Original Message-----
From: "Adrian " <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2012 17:08:54 -0500
I thought members of this list serv would appreciate this article from
the China Daily ... how many other libraries have intelligent talking
robots to support the students, faculty and librarians ... quite
remarkable I thought, although a few glitches still being worked out
...
BEIJING - The innocent charm of a talking robot proved irresistible to many
- but what they talked about proved too much for the automated servant.
An online chatting robot named Xiaotu on the website of Tsinghua
University's library had to suspend services during the winter
vacation because too many visitors wanted to talk to it about weird
and wonderful matters unrelated to library services.
Xiaotu, which means "little library" in Chinese, has the ability to
learn during its conversations with humans, but its designers said it
has picked up too much "unsuitable material" from visitors to the
website.
"It had been a long time anyway since we last cleared up its database,
so we decided to suspend the service to do it," said a design group
member surnamed Yao, who works in the university's library.
Xiaotu's main functions include answering questions about the library,
searching library collections and other search engines, and
self-learning.
Design work on Xiaotu started in 2009 and by the end of 2010 it was
put online on the homepage of Tsinghua University's library and on
renren.com, a social network similar to Facebook.
On the library's homepage, it was scoring more than 1,000 visits a day.
But many of the questions were not pertinent to Xiaotu's role and it
learned a lot of language from users which was unrelated to library
affairs, and which was often meaningless or worse.
One user asked Xiaotu "Who are you parents?" and it answered "Tsinghua
University and Peking University".
But last week, when students returned for the spring semester, Xiaotu
was put back into service after its data cleanup.
"We have improved its services and I hope users can teach it useful
information now," said Yao.
He added that Xiaotu's filtering ability will be strengthened by
increasing its database of sensitive words.
http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2012-02/27/content_14701266.htm
Adrian Stanley
Chief Executive Officer
The Charlesworth Group (USA)
Web: www.charlesworth-group.com
Email: [log in to unmask]
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