Augmented Reality in the Law Library?

Technical work in the library–largely done behind-the-scenes–is key to ensuring things go smoothly on the client-facing side such as reference and research. One tedious and time-consuming tech task is shelf-reading: checking each book on the shelf to ensure it has been signed back in and is in the correct place. Without doing this on a regular basis (such as once or twice a year), books that have been mis-shelved become impossible to locate.

A library shelf-reading prototype using augmented reality technology–technology that adds to an image of physical space with a computer-generated overlay–is being developed out of Miami University’s Augmented Reality Research Group led by Prof. Bo Brinkman. The prototype uses an Android phone app that overlays an image of the books on a shelf with an indication of which books are in or out of order. It also checks which books have not already been signed in. While still in development, this project holds out hope of ways to significantly reduce the time spent on this type of work. Prof. Brinkman was scheduled to talk about this project on Saturday at the Association of Colleges and Research Libraries 2011 conference.

A couple of things I would like to see that would make this technology even more practical for implementation:

• the ability to use barcodes on the spines or RFID tags already inside the books rather than using yet another labelling system. Libraries have already invested a lot of time and money into these systems; it does not seem to make sense to add another system.
• into the future, it would be good to have a small automated robot review the shelves with this technology (such as overnight), rather than requiring a person to do it. Ideally, the robot would also move books into their correct places on the shelf. Some work has been done in developing robotics for shelving in large libraries, so tying the two together makes sense. Mind you, if robots are doing the shelving in the first place, you may not need to do the shelf-reading.

I love the potential this project holds.

Source: Read Write Web – Awesome Augmented Reality App Could Save Librarians Hours by Audrey Watters (March 27, 2011).

Hat tip: Susan Murphy.