By going through the recent trends, I came to a wild perception and a question that; are smart machines going to replace humans?  Is there any areas where we can possibly outsmart those machines? If we not yet equipped how can we?

If it is only on the personal or social side we think, there is also a concern like, when we do automate our library services early years, in a way we change ourselves to accommodate those machines for the sake of a better experience/performance and if that holds, how we are going to accommodate these rapidly evolving revolutionary smart machines with technology by name “ Internet of Things”? These holds more ground when the information environment  where we are going to work, where precision, speed of delivery, better processing skills among complex big data…etc are going to be utmost important aspects of information services; not only for the human users but also for the other dependent chain of smart machines.

Information management and Smart Machines

RFID has revolutionized the customer services all around the world, even the smart phones we use today are much more evolved from what we had earlier as mobile devices, read along with the google cars; they have already removed the conception that a human hand is necessary to handle a big machine that among and along with humans and other machines.

So let’s come to our topic here, information management and smart machines; Smart Machines basically incorporates cognitive computing which involves machine learning, natural language processing, artificial intelligence and analytical skills to understand, think and act like what we are upto some level. Added with the report of smart machine called ‘IBM Watson’ wins the American TV quiz show – Jeopardy, where its previous winners where humans, gives us a glimpse into their capabilities. What makes it apart from other super computers is that its ability to learn and understand natural language questions using data mining and machine learning. It can glean data from various sources for learning purpose. According to an App developer for Watson called Biovideo of San Antonio, Texas they are ready to give training to Watson on neonactal and infant medical data from authentic sources like medical journals, American academy of pediatrics and UK National Health Service, so that “a mother with a sick child at 4 am will be able to use Watson to ask what is wrong with her baby and get a 100 percent accurate response”. So for medical library professional, they can use it or transform accordingly.

Hope and where it lies

It is going to be difficult for a human element to edit and make data discoverable in pace with the data explosion. The good news is that abilities can be developed through dedication and practice and aren’t fixed by biology.

Since with the advent of various smart phones and other web 2.0 tools we are very much familiar with various sensors like proximity sensors, light, touch, motion sensors…etc  along with your online travel you might have experienced  priority based customer targeting, collaborative filtering like technologies used by various online players. As you all know that “ Internet of Things” (REST API Architecture, Jason,Java ) is all about Machine to Machine communication for a better world connected through internet. So as by the saying imagination is more powerful than knowledge, I would like to take you to a quick tour in to our future library scenario.

Future library scenario: an attempt

Users are entering in to our information space, with their arrival our proximity sensors at the gate will pass on information to central DB and other related DB (IPV6 network). So accordingly our display unit will show them their then interest books and other resources along with offers by evaluating their last few months online behaviors. If interested they can approve the process, if not if they prefer other resources, as usual our interactive panel (may be holographic on the way as demand occurs) will show its availability and our robot systems (Message Queue Telemetry Transport/Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol/Data Distribution Service/Advanced Message Queuing Protocol/Constrained application Protocol) will will fetch it and once it drop it into the previously assigned user cart, the item gets automatically issued and user gets issue receipt. With the removal of item from the shelf, the shelf will notify the server the amount of copies left with it, replace time and space available and in need can make purchase request to central DB . And there will be separate monitors to check the movement of books during processing from section to section using motion sensors and the resource (RFID/QR Codes) itself will tell the halflife and other properties of itself by analyzing the demand and worthiness of the information it holds in the internet. On user return if there is any mismatch with the data the smart gate will inform the security monitor and alarm system.

See my imagination lacks due to the lack of awareness about various technologies, let it flourish with your thoughts. But don’t forget to give a good commanding seat for our Librarians there.

Stay connected, charged and relevant through Lislinks, whilst hoping for a game changing solution for its smart members.

For a better world