My latest discoveries on library chatbots: Pixel

This week, I learned through Michael Sauers from #NCompassLive Tech Talk about Pixel, the chatbot at the University of Nebraska– Lincoln Library. You can meet Pixel, the reference library chatbot at http://pixel.unl.edu/ and/or view the YouTube presentation on Pixel:





While listening to the presentation, I learned a couple of new things myself. The presenter DeAnn Allison raises the point that chatbots can flatten one's website, and reduce users from having to navigate to get information. Instead, users can just ask a question and the chatbot could provide the information or even the hyperlink to enable the user to get where they want to go, without having to click through several links. Lorna Dawes, the co-presenter, also made the point that chatbots are very useful for library websites that are very dense. As she made this point, I immediately thought of the  Library of Congress website, which I believe is very dense, yet full of useful information. If there is any library that should get one, in my opinion it is the Library of Congress.

The presentation also gave me an opportunity to reacquaint myself with Artificial Intelligence Markup Language (AIML), the language behind the open source chat bot movement. I also learned about Program-O (Open Source PHP MySQL AIML Chatbot software) http://blog.program-o.com/ as another open source software for creating one's chatbots.


Another thing that I discovered or realized during the presentation was the importance of taxonomies or ontologies in developing chatbots. This I realised as DeAnn Allison discussed how she used Library of Congress Subject headings to inform the AIML of a library chatbot. Allison (2012) also has an article on chatbots in the library if you want to check it out.

Reference:
Allison, D.  (2012). Chatbots in the library: Is it time? Library Hi Tech, (30) 1: 95 - 107.

DOI:	10.1108/07378831211213238

In answering reference queries: The need for experience

In a Facebook group that I am a part of, a certain question came up about the use of Library Assistants (LAs) in an academic library to provide reference services. The person asked if any librarians in academic libraries currently practice using LAs to provide basic directional and informational services as well as basic navigational instruction on the use of the OPAC while sitting at the reference desk on rotation.  the person also inquired about the practice of using library school students at the Associate and Bachelors Level to provide the same service. I gave a response that I think might be useful if I share here for others.

Firstly, I am definitely of the opinion that library assistants can be trained to do reference, especially if given an expert system/document to guide them in brainstorming where to go to find information for general reference queries. However, in my experience, neither training librarians or library assistants can really compensate for their own personal experience in doing academic research that requires them to use a variety of research resources. Sometimes, your inter-disciplinary background in library research or understanding research requirements are necessary to help you better meet the needs of patrons.

In relation to point  of experience being required for quality reference work: I recall several circumstances where I was able to help persons in the past as a student library assistant because of my familiarity with academic research and library use from my undergraduate days. (My undergraduate degree was in Political Science with Statistics). I knew where to help an social scientist to find a statistical formula because I did courses in statistics and was familiar with the literature in the field and knew personally that the formula could be found in the back of text books. I also recalled an experience where I was able to point a Mass Communication student to a relevant encyclopedia, because of my own experience of using libraries as a student and finding subject specific encyclopedias. On the other hand, I have observed in my own experience that academic librarians without such experiences seek to  find everything using the databases. But one resource cannot meet every variety of research needs, and as such any one doing reference work needs to think through the research question or query as to the most likely resource that has the answer to satisfy the patron.