Inside the University of Chicago?s Automated Library

The University of Chicago has revealed how its automated, robotic Joe and Rika Mansueto Library will work.

The building, a mammoth sunlit elliptical dome fashioned from glass and steel, has no books, aisles or shelves to peruse. Instead it sits on top of a 50-foot-deep storage vault which archives the library?s millions of volumes.

The books are loaded into 24,000 bins, roughly 100 books to a tub, and categorized by size rather than authors or subjects to maximize the efficient use of each bin. Each book has a barcode slapped onto its spine.

Up top on ground level (from anywhere on campus), a student can browse the library?s archive using an online catalogue website. They can then request the book and pop off towards the Mansueto Library.

Deep underground, five fifty-foot-tall mechanized cranes go to work finding the appropriate bin from the 12 columns of metal racks. They?re custom-made cranes, designed to move along the columns autonomously. Once found, a crane will lift the entire bin of books to the surface.

Here, a staff member will find the book in the bin and scan its barcode. This will send an e-mail to the student, letting them know that their publication is ready to pick up. When the book comes back and the barcode is scanned again the crane will pop off to find the appropriate bin and bring it back to ground level. A staff member will slide the book into the tub so it can be put back into storage.

The whole system can take just five minutes, meaning most students can request a book and have it ready for pick-up by the time they?ve crossed the campus and reached the library. It gives students more room for reading and using computers and, with no need to leave room for idle browsers, the library can squish the millions of titles into a high density space.

The dome is now finished, and students will be able to enter the reading room from May 16, 2011. The underground vault will be finished in the autumn, and books will be filed and catalogued for retrieval in 2012.

What do you think? Are you impressed by the automated library?s mechanical efficiency, or would you miss the experience of getting lost in a labyrinth of shelves filled with different books and volumes? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Source: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/05/u-chicago-automated-library/

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