Rossum's Children

The University of British Columbia campus has a robot infestation in the heart of their library. It seems they moved about 800,000 low-use volumes (mainly out-of-date journals and publications that are rarely accessed) into an Automated Storage and Retrieval System (ASRS).

The system takes about 5 minutes to retrieve a volume once queried, but saves massive amounts of space on the library floor for books, while keeping hardcopies of this material rather than relying on digitization. The system seems pretty well received, and since no-one really 'browses' journals, the impact on the day-to-day operation of the library is pretty slim.

I don't know if the system also says "Sssshh" when sound levels raise above a certain amount.

UBC opens Canada'’s first robot-based library [Umanitoba.ca]

Image courtesy of the original article, created by Sanya Anwar.