Robotic librarian finds lost books, won't tell you to shush - CNET

Every job has its more boring components. In libraries, one of those jobs is scaing the shelves, looking for missing and misplaced books, and taking stock of what's available. For human workers, this is time-consuming, repetitive and boring, all of which can contribute to wandering attention.

The autonomous robotic shelf-scaing platform, or AuRoSS, is in development by the Institute for Infocomm Research of Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research. It uses laser mapping to navigate a library, and RFID tags placed on books to scan the collection. It can work at night, tracking the shelves in real-time to locate lost and missing books, with 99 percent scaing accuracy, even with curved shelves.

"During the re-opening of Pasir Ris Public Library, we put on a public demonstration and received very positive reactions," said researcher Renjun Li in a statement. "We are improving the robustness and analytics engine and integrating into library operations."