Text to Speech Bug SOLVED!!!

A BIG Thank You to Dr. Richard Wallace who found the solution to Emma reading the javascript when she passed searches to our catalog. Please stand by for some major improvments in our catbot!

Our Bots are going to San Francisco!

What do you know! Emma and Dewey will be going to San Francisco in April for the 2011 IUG National Conference! Michele McNeal and I will also be attending, since we'll be doing the presentations. Good thing I bought a new suit!

The Ubiquitous Library Cat

You're surrounded! Put the can of tuna on the ground SLOWLY and step back. No sudden moves, keep your hands in sight. Library cats are everywhere, in the U.S. and across the globe. Here's a map to prove it!

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...