What's with the clouds?

People have asked about the clouds behind Emma. "You're a library, how come she isn't sitting in front of books?" That's a question worth answering. Yes, we're a library. And yes, we still have quite a few books. Chances are, we always will. Paper is cheap, durable, and you don't need electricity to read something printed on it. So why the clouds? Many of the qualities that make Emma so useful to our library are the same qualities that remove her from us - she never appears bored, or impatient, or sad, or angry. (She will stop talking if someone uses profanity.) These are great if something has to answer the same questions over and over, hundreds of times a week, but they are definitely not human characteristics. Placing her in the clouds affirms her AI status; she's not remote or superior, but there can be no question that she's set apart from us. Plus, I can program all sorts of fun answers if you ask her about them.

On Vacation

Yes, I'm on vacation this week. Planning to go on a few day trips, otherwise
we're just going to relax. Maybe read that XML book I brought home and give some thought to the flowchart Michele sent for directing user's questions.

Mind your manners!

Emma and Dewey are now much better at dealing with those few odd folk that insist on using profanity. A few modifications to Square Bear's shutup.aiml and now conversation ends when profanity is used. At least until the user apologizes. Just like at the reference desks with real, human librarians and patrons, it's nice that our bots don't have to take abuse.

[In Pandorabots' SuperBot 2.0 most of the problem words are reduced to PROFANITY or INSULT. If you're not running SuperBot, it's still pretty easy to reduce all of them to one or two patterns, then alter shutup.aiml accordingly. I was tempted to add responses like "recording client barcode and location," but we all know what would happen if I did. It's probably best just to make them say they're sorry.]

Presenting "Dewey!" The Akron-Summit County Public Library Catbot!

Emma has a new friend and colleague! Meet Dewey, The Akron-Summit County Public Library Catbot! You can talk with Dewey by following this link. Michele McNeal, ASCPL Web Specialist, is developing Dewey and has also created a mobile version of the bot for your phone. You'll be hearing more about Dewey on this blog, stay tuned...

Presentation Slides

Here are the slides to our EGL-IUG presentation. It's too nice a day to spend blogging, so that's it for now.

Fun at EGL- IUG

Michele McNeal and I just got done presenting our bots at EGL - IUG in Akron. They gave us the auditorium, which was a real kick. Nothing like standing at a podium with Emma's face projected onto a HUGE screen behind you. Very "Citizen Kane." (Is this why people get that funny look when I insist that robots aren't going to take over the world?) Michele took some photos which I'll post later along with the slides of our presentation. We got a decent audience, but it was a little hard to gauge their reaction. The public loves her, librarians are...afraid?

Emma and Dewey at EGL-IUG

Librarians from Ohio and nearby states will get to meet Emma and Dewey (Akron-Summit County Public Library's bot) at the Eastern Great Lakes Innovative Users Group 2010 Annual Conference in Akron on Friday, October 15. Michele McNeal, ASCPL's Web Specialist, and I will present "The Intelligent WebPac: enhancing user experience with .aiml." It's going to be a blast! Michele is great fun to work with, and is a tremendous speaker. (I know because I saw her present at the EGL-IUG 2008 Annual Conference!) She's clear, concise, and unfailingly logical. She's also a fine writer. Here's the program in case you're interested.

BTW - The Innovative Users group is an international organization of member libraries who use the Innovative Interfaces, Inc. integrated library software. That's the software that we use to check things in and out, create and maintain patron records, item records, etc., etc.