Perceptio ns and Pro spects of Artific ial Intelligence ...

12 th International CALIBER-2019

Perceptions and Prospects of Artificial Intelligence Technologies for Academic

Libraries: An Overview of Global Trends

Garima Gujral J Shivarama Puttaraj A Choukimath

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is seen as an extension of human intelligence and has taken over various
sectors. Application of Artificial Intelligence in libraries has been providing a breakthrough for the
information sector. Technological advancements can stimulate many human capabilities such as
calculating, reading, speaking, grasping, remembering, making judgments and interactive learn-
ing. The adoption of artificial intelligence in virtual reference services is considered to provide a
new online service model for libraries. Librarians are always on the cutting edge of technologies to
engage and enhance services for their users, some of the valid additions include virtual realities that
engages users with libraries and enhance information literacy skills.
This paper attempts to trace the application and potential impact of artificial intelligence in aca-
demic libraries. The application of artificial intelligence under four domains like educational, infor-
mative, assistive and social networking have been captured and explained along with their implica-
tions. Conversational agents such as chatbots, AI-based participatory library services, research
impact, and information discovery, virtual reality have been described
Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Natural Language Processing, Academic Libraries, Expert Systems.

1. Introduction dissemination but in terms of technology as well.

Artificial Intelligence has become the new emerging
The twenty-first century is a field of rapid
trend for libraries. Artificial intelligence has proven
transformation and technological advancements,
to be a breakthrough for information sectors such
organizations must adapt to evolving technologies
as law, which has had significant impacts (Smith,
to meet consumer demands. The use of Artificial
2016; Chen and Neary, 2017). Artificial Intelligence
Intelligence in libraries can be seen as a collection
have had positive impacts on academic libraries and
of technologies enabling machines to sense,
has brought changes in search and retrieval
comprehend, act and learn and can perform
methods, discovery search, chatbots, text and data
administrative functions and have provided cutting
mining (Fernandez, 2016, p22)
edge technologies for libraries. Librarianship is
known as a profession known for integrating cutting 2. Artificial Intelligence: An Overview
edge technologies not just for information
Artificial Intelligence can be understood as the
collection of technologies that enables machines to
12 th International CALIBER-2019
KIIT, Bhubaneswar, Odisha 28-30 November, 2019 sense, comprehend, act and perform several
© INFLIBNET Centre, Gandhinagar, Gujarat
functions matching up with human intelligence. The
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major components of the Artificial Intelligence 3. Literature Review

bucket are machine learning, big data, natural
Cox and Pinfield (2018) identified the impacts of
language processing, decision logic, data
Artificial Intelligence on search and retrieval
visualization, data analytics.
methods, resource delivery, scholarly publishing and
McCarthy (2007) defined AI as the science and on learning their findings suggest potential roles
engineering of making intelligent “machines, for academic libraries and gather the perceptions of
especially intelligent computer programs.” the potential impact of Artificial Intelligence on
academic libraries and its implications for library
Artificial Intelligence aims to understand the nature
works. The potential roles for AI in libraries were
of intelligence and constructing computer systems
data acquisition fabrication and curation,
capable of intelligent response and action.
information literacy, aiding user navigation and
The first wave of artificial intelligence has already Infrastructure building.
arrived in the form of basic online search which
Yao et. al(2015) explained an artificial intelligence-
recommends similar results based on our search
based smart-talking robot Xaiotu: participatory
requests.
library service. Xiaotu is a new online reference

Fig.1: Artificial Intelligence Timeline

[Source: Marsden, Paul (2017) Artificial Intelligence Timeline Infographic – From Eliza to Tay and
beyond, Available:https://digitalwellbeing.org/artificial-intelligence-timeline-infographic-from-eliza-to-tay-
and-beyond/]

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Perceptio ns and Pro spects of Artific ial Intelligence ... 12 th International CALIBER-2019

service modus operandi. The factors contributing they function. Some of the interrelated roles
to the success of robots include modular performed by academic libraries are enlisted in the
architecture, self-learning, vivid language. It allows table below-
users to become content co-creators and maximizes
Table-1: Application of AI in Academic Libraries
the potential of delivery of virtual reference service
S N Role of AI Applications
offering high featured interactive communication.
(Yao et.al, 2015). 1 Data Curation Collection Management,
Digital Preservation
Massis(2018) examined artificial intelligence and its
2 Navigating new Understanding Scholarly
potential relationship to libraries the findings information communication landscape
suggest “The very disruptive nature of any new environment
technology could be viewed as a threat to many 3 Data Analysis Statistical analysis
institutions, including the library. But with the
4 Content Procurement Licensing for e-content
eventual acceptance and incorporation of AI into
5 Data Quality Control Collection Management
its services, it is certainly possible to speculate that
this latest technology “intrusion” could also offer 6 Data Literacy Information Literacy

many potential positive enhancements into a 7 Human-Computer Reference services

multitude of library services, many of which are only Intera ction
being examined, considered and piloted in their early
The above Table describes the role of artificial
stages of development.
intelligence in libraries along with their applications
Mogali(2015) reflected upon the major areas of in a specific domain of libraries. Some changes with
artificial intelligence i.e. pattern recognition, expert interventions of artificial intelligence have been
systems, robots, and natural language processing. implemented in libraries and yet some need to be
The application of expert systems in library activities done. The role of librarians as data curators would
such as reference services, cataloging, classification have to take up data related skills such as data
and have been very promising and prove to improve management, licensing, quality control these skills
along with the integration of artificial intelligence
the productivity of libraries to a great extent.
would transform libraries into an intelligent library.
Fernandez(2016) identified potential impacts of AI
Applications of Artificial Intelligencies in academic
in libraries analyzing big corpora of data, creating
libraries under several domains have been traced
metadata, translation of search and integrating
and explained along with their implications as
search across content. Completely new ways of follows:
interacting with information, e.g. location-based
search will also be part of the picture, he suggests. 4.1 AI-Based Conversational Agents

Human-Computer interactions serve four main

4. Application of Artificial Intelligence in
functions in libraries i.e. educational, informational,
Academic Libraries
assistive and interactive (Rubin and Chen, 2010)
Artificial Intelligence plays several roles in academic Conversational Agents can be defined as “natural
libraries and has the potential to transform the way language interaction interfaces which are designed

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to stimulate a conversation with a real person” language conversational agents which can be
(Rubin and Chen, 2010). Natural Language deployed in academic libraries. Conversational
Interaction (NLI) is a part of fields like Artificial agents have great potential to serve the information
Intelligence and Natural Language Processing (NLP) needs of the millennial user community in academic
(Joshi, 199) NLI promises to provide believable, libraries.
personalized and human-likee interaction with
b) Profile of some popular conversational agents:
computers in natural language. (Rubin and Chen,
2010). i. Lillian-Informational Chatbot: Lillian is an
informational chatbot which has been incorporated
The two important forms within the natural language
into the library website. It informs users about the
interaction are chatbots and embodied
library holdings and answers questions on library
conversational agents. Interaction in the case of
materials using OCLC( Online Computer Library
chatbots is limited to text input or output. Embodied
Centre) (Chatbots.org, 2006) Lillian advises patrons
Conversational Agents comprise of a computer
about the content of books, titles by the same author,
interface which uses its face and body in a human-
related book reviews and recommendations.
like while interacting with the user” (Foster, 2007,
p.828). ii. Darcy: Darcy is an animated avatar that delivers
short audio messages from the library website
a) Chatbots
regarding recent events, public awareness
Chatbots are computer programs that simulate an announcements about the library, It appeals to the
intelligent conversation through text, speech or young students the most.
through an embodied representation. They are also
referred to as digital assistants or virtual intelligent iii. Stella: Stella is a text-based chatbot from the
agents. They answer directional, reference and Hamburg State and University Library which is
predictable inquiries. Chatbots are available 24/7 are equivalent to virtual librarians that supplement live
consistent and patiently answer queries reader ’s advisory services with a real-time
conversation in which the system fine-tunes its
Table 2: Application of AI-Based Conversational
retrieved results based on the responsiveness of
Agents in Academic Libraries
users (Christensen, 2007).
Sn Pur po se s Applications
1 Educational E-learningCourseware Support
To heighten awareness regarding natural language-
Computer-Assisted language learning related technologies in libraries there should be
2 Informational Information Assistants Interfaces broader discussions within the Library and
for Institutional Repositories Information Science community. The purpose of
3 Assistive Automated Virtual Reference application of AI-based conversational agents
LibrariansWebsite tour guides Virtual
should not be confused with replacing face to face
readers advisory services providers
human interaction rather it should focus upon
4 Socially Social Software hostsVirtual reader’s
Intera ctive advisory hostsVirtual book club
enhancing the services offered by libraries Adopting
hostsVirtual storytellers conversational agents in a library will increase

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The above table taxonomically describes the

various purposes and applications of natural
Perceptio ns and Pro spects of Artific ial Intelligence ... 12 th International CALIBER-2019

diversity as these applications can serve a large (Yao et al., 2011b) The main functions of Xiaotu
number of patrons at any time of the day, server include natural language communication in Chinese,
wider range of users even if they are at a physical expert answers in professional fields, searching in
distance. Spoken or voice-based systems facilitate OPAC, searching in Baidu Baike, China’s version of
applications to users with visual impairments. Wikipedia, self-training, and learning; and finally,
Conversational agents enhance user-information interface to integrate with other systems.
systems as they add expressive power to a machine
Xaiotu has been developed based on ALICE(2015)
(Andre and Rist, 2000), Free librarians from the
which is the most pioneer natural language
tedious and repetitive tasks and keeping up with
processing robot. Xiaotu operates on a large
the changing times.
database, requires reference records accumulated
Conversational agents stand in compliance with the by Tsinghua University Library. Users can also teach
roles of libraries i.e. information sharing and retrieval Xiaotu new knowledge in a question-answer format
as they enhance the social interactions offering a the teachings get recorded in the server. Xiaotu
virtual librarian, more attention needs to be paid quickly made her presence on the social networking
towards the intersection of Natural Language web site Renren (Renren,2015a), the equivalent of
systems as they have a long way to go and benefit Facebook in China and enhances the availability of
LIS professionals and patrons. services such as an intra application on the website.

4.2 AI-Based Participatory Library Services

The concept of participatory libraries was first

coined by Lankes et.al (2007). It refers to the idea
that libraries should offer integrated services in a
manner that allows users to participate in the core
library functions (Lankes et al., 2007; Nguyen et al.,
2012). The relationship between libraries has evolved
from information users to information users and
information curators to a more user-centered role.
Fig. 2: Xiaotu: Smart Talking Robot in a TV
(Nguyen et al., 2012).
reality show (China)
“Xiaotu” an artificial intelligence-based talking
[Source: Chinese AI robot takes on humans in
robot was developed in China, Xiaotu plays the role
reality TV show, Tribune, January 09, 2017.
of a virtual librarian and creates a participatory
Available: https://tribune.com.pk/story/1288976/
environment by attracting users to participate in
chinese-ai-robot-takes-humans-reality-tv-show/]
resource sharing. (Yao et. al, 2015)

a) Xiaotu: Smart Talking Robot (China)

4.3 AI in Research and Scholarly Communication
Xiaotu provides real-time virtual 24/7 reference
services in mobile and social networking platforms.
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Artificial Intelligence will have a profound impact

on the research environment it will bring about
significant changes in the way peer reviews are done,
working of journals, publication patterns. Automated
peer reviews may not offer the quality and precision
as human-based peer reviews and may have
disruptive impacts on the research environment. The
role of journals might change as information seekers
may stop depending on journals for filtering services
and would prefer subscribing to filtering services
based on their needs. (Cox and Rutin, 2018) Research
scholars would find relevant information on their
fingertips and would help increase their scope. Fig. 3: Expert Systems

4.4 AI and Information Discovery [Source: Kennedy, Saira (2018). Artificial

Intelligence and Machine Learning: What Are
Artificial Intelligence would have a range of impacts They and Why Are They Important?
on search and resource discovery, it would lead to
faster search and retrieval process and analyzing Available: https://mapr.com/blog/artificial-
the searcher ’s behavior. The models for intelligence-and-machine-learning-what-are-they-
recommendation systems would evolve to an extent and-why-are-they-important/]
that needs to search may not be there and the Pattern Recognition in Academic Libraries
computer would anticipate the needs of the users.
Diversification in terms of a search may take place The information needs of users are increasing day
and may serve the role of a reference librarian to a by day and one of the major challenges which lie in
great extent. (Cox and Rutin, 2018) front of knowledge managers is information retrieval
from the ocean of the web. Several fundamental
Expert Systems retrieval techniques such as voice recognition,
Expert Systems can be defined as “knowledge-based speech recognition, segmentation, and automatic
computerized systems which play a role of indexing are widely being used. Semantic Analysis
intelligence interface or gateway for providing of texts, machine learning, clustering, artificial neural
access to a database and to obtain relevant networks is among the highly popular techniques.
information.” It is a computer program that provides Artificial Intelligence analyses data from previous
expert advice, decisions or recommended solutions searches in many different ways and finds patterns
for a given situation. An expert system has three that are based on patron usage.
main components Knowledgebase, Inference
Engine, and User Interface. (Mogali, 2015)

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5. Artificial Intelligence in Virtual Reality for can solve user queries. Content-based information
Modern Libraries retrieval can direct users in pulling out relevant
library web pages and navigating the content more
Virtual reality refers to the immersion of a user into a
efficiently. Information is delivered to patrons in
completely simulated environment. It consists of a
speech or text form which can be controlled, the
computer-generated simulation of something where
pace of information dispersal from the system can
users can interact with the help of equipment such
also be controlled
as headphones, head-mounted displays, gloves with
sensors, etc. Virtual reality has integrated with 6.1 Pixel: University of Nebraska, USA
libraries over time and has formed to be new forms
Pixel, a virtual reference librarian was developed
of dialogue between LIS professionals and users,
using SQL database and artificial intelligence mark
Virtual Reality offers multiple means to increasing
up language metadata, interface built using PHP
information literacy and search and retrieval skills.
Free apps can be downloaded on smartphones answers variety of questions and has attracted a
which allows entering the virtual reality ecosystem huge number of chatters from across the world. It
for educational systems are as follows- provides 24/7 consistent service and has replaced
complex navigation by providing targeted answers.
5.1 Aura-Soma
These systems free librarians from redundant
Aura-Soma is a free app compatible with iOS and reference queries and allow them to spend more time
Android devices, it allows original content creation on research and issues which require human
known as “Auras” with human-based narrations, expertise. (Allison, 2011)
charts, graphs, and animations. It brings life to
libraries as when the user points at a digital object 7. Artificial Intelligence and Global Trends in
an aura appears at the screen briefly describing the Academic Libraries
content. Artificial Intelligence has the potential to meet
5.2 EON Reality Educational, Informational, Assistive and Socially
Interactive needs making them suitable for libraries.
EON Experience portal is an interactive online library AI has several perspectives such as information
that is home to thousands of 3D objects, avatars, literacy, critical thinking skills, enhancing the
scenes, and applications (EONReality,2015). Allows productivity of libraries.
development of custom content which attracts
users’. Used by Carnegie Mellon University (USA), Technical Infrastructure to access collections is
Imperial College (UK), Nanyang Technological being built up in MIT so its collections are accessible
University (Singapore) and many other educational by the Application programming interface and can
institutions (Massis,2015) be used by machine learning algorithms. Scholarly
information needs to be in open access to collaborate
6. Automated Virtual Reference Librarians with AI. LIS professionals need to get familiarized
The working hours of librarians are limited, virtual with the latest researchers and working of AI and
reference services using instant messaging services create possibilities of AI for metadata creation and

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harvesting, collection development, reference determined by two main factors i.e. logical
services, human-machine collaboration. algorithms which are technical related and
corpus capacity which is related to data. With
The future of artificial intelligence holds wide scope
technological advancements taking place at a
in the information sector as the needs of users as
skyrocketing pace more and more complicated
well as LIS professionals have been evolving at a
algorithms are being formulated and optimized.
fast pace in order to meet those needs in an effective
To catch up with the same, more and more
and efficient manner the LIS professionals need to
crawlers would be required to obtain the internet
implement artificially intelligent as well as expert
and improve its quality of intelligence.
systems would widen and diversify the functions
of library. d) Cost: Cost is one of the major barriers to the
implication of AI in the information sector, Most
8. Issues and Challenges in Deploying Artificial
of the AI systems are in the form of proprietary
Intelligence in Academic Libraries
software. Investment in AI-based technologies
Artificial Intelligence is still tied up with several has not become a trend in libraries and require
technological, social and economic challenges, some more dialogue and clarity among professionals.
of the major issues in the implementation of artificial
e) Linguistic styles: Chatbots have limited
intelligence technologies in libraries are- language
memory and processing power does not support
preparedness, system requirements, privacy
extensive vocabulary or the ability to deal with
concerns, a threat to intellectual freedom they have
diverse conversational styles. Developers need
been briefly described as follows:
to predict the types of interactions and develop
a) Privacy: Artificial Intelligence when fed with suitable responses to them, which is a
massive amounts of data, eventually learns to challenging task for a country like India as the
identify certain data sets with the help of dialect varies in every state, Prescribed
machine learning. Personal data becomes a conversation styles might not be suitable for
commodity that might get misused for illicit all kinds of interactions.
purposes. Librarians need to secure privacy by
f) Bias: The transparency and accountability of
providing anonymous ways of interacting with
artificial intelligence systems are being
artificial intelligence systems.
questioned, the algorithms may function based
b) Intellectual freedom: Seeking and receiving on developer bias or commercial organizations
information from Artificial Intelligence systems which may lead to disparity in the academic
leads to intellectual freedom at threat, as sector.
personal data is sought through machine
9. Conclusion
learning. Queries and search history gets saved
which can be used against people. The partnership between artificial intelligence and
libraries can be a major step towards the future of
c) Quality of Intelligence: The quality level of a
libraries. AI brings in tools for enhancing services
particular artificial intelligence system is
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such as discovery, search and retrieval processes 6. Cox, A. M., Pinfield, S., & Rutter, S. (2018). The
more efficient. These intelligent information systems intelligent library: Thought leaders’ views on
have the potential to engage and foster human skills. the likely impact of Artificial Intelligence on
Librarians can adopt artificial intelligence for several academic libraries. Library Hi Tech, Vol. ahead-
purposes such as reference services, teaching of-print No. ahead-of-print Available at: https:/
information literacy skills, monitoring and /doi.org/10.1108/LHT-08-2018-0105
evaluation, information search and retrieval
7. Fernandez, P. (2016). Through the looking
processes. AI will have implications over several
glass?: envisioning new library technologies
services from offering insights to collections, easily
understanding artificial intelligence, (3), pp. 20–
storing and transferring files. This form of
23. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1108/LHTN-
collaborative technology will emerge in enhanced
03-2016-0013
partnerships between librarians and stakeholders.
The success stories of implementation of AI can act 8. Fernandez, P. (2019). Through the looking
as a stepping stone towards adopting these glass?: envisioning new library technologies
innovative technologies and enhancing the services people tracking technologies, 36(2), pp. 2–5.
offered by librarians to a greater extent. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1108/LHTN-10-
2018-0068
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timeline-infographic-from-eliza-to-tay-and- About Authors

beyond/
Ms. Garima Gujral, Tata Institute of Social Sciences,
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