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User experience in the library: a case study

2008, New Library World

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Case Study: Red Hook (N.Y.) Public Library: One Small Win Creates Huge Ripples of Change

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Location: Red Hook, N.Y. | Staff Size: 5.4 FTE | Service Area: 14,000 Ì Download PDF

• By leading Community Conversations and listening to residents, the Red Hook LTC team realized they could address a problem and improve how the community worked together by fixing the town’s stoplight. Choosing to act on this was a critical decision; it sent a signal that change was possible and that people’s concerns mattered.
• People were so energized by the forward progress that they wanted to keep going. The library is now working with residents and other partners to establish a community center.
• The LTC team’s efforts have inspired residents to get involved in ways they weren’t before. The library is playing a convening role, but in many cases, residents are developing solutions to problems.

The Village of Red Hook, New York—population 1,961—sits about 100 miles north of New York City near the Catskills and Hudson River Valley. It is home to Bard College, a nationally ranked liberal arts college that is the town’s largest employer.

When the discussion around community aspirations began in 2014, most residents reported how much they loved living in this community. A couple of issues quickly rose to the top that needed to be addressed, including one iconic one: the town’s only stoplight.

Every day, 14,000 vehicles passed through the light, which sat at the intersection of two state highways. The light’s timing was off, leading to wait times as long as seven minutes. Seeking to avoid the long delay, drivers frequently chose to cut through residential neighborhoods, endangering kids and adults who were walking and riding bikes in the streets.

The light had been a problem as long as people could remember. Everyone knew it, yet the earliest it was expected to be addressed was 2017—three years after this story begins. For a small town, this little traffic light was a big issue. Everyone in town knew it was a problem, but the sense of urgency was never fully communicated to the state. So it sat near the bottom of a long line of state-funded public infrastructure problems.

But a seemingly small act— people coming together in 2015 to talk, share ideas and x a problem—forged a new “can-do” narrative in Red Hook in which residents take ownership of their community in a different way. This substantial change was made possible by the efforts of a small group of leaders, organized by Red Hook Public Library, a small community library with only 4,500 cardholders.

Progress Made

Today, years ahead of schedule, the stoplight is fixed, but that’s just the beginning of this story. The work the library initiated to x the light became a catalyst for a variety of changes in improving the quality of life in Red Hook, making this small community better mobilized, better connected and more prepared to tackle complex challenges. Red Hook Public Library is now working in partnership with community groups, community leaders, Bard College and residents to take on a variety
of issues.

• The library is working to establish a community center to give more people opportunities to come together.
• And, seeing the benefits of their work, the library is helping to make connections between groups and encouraging others to take on community engagement work so more people can work toward the betterment of the community.

Being a part of changes like these also marked a big shift for the library.

“[Before, the library] was completely off people’s radars,” said Erica Freudenberger, who became library director in 2010. “It was this musty old building that was best to be avoided.”

The Journey

Freudenberger wanted to change the perception of the library and add more value to the community.

Shortly after being named library director, she started attending local Rotary and chamber of commerce meetings and joined a group of local leaders called Red Hook Together. Started by Erin Cannan, associate director of the Bard College Center for Civic Engagement, Red Hook Together met about every five weeks “as a way to address some of the ‘town and gown’ issues,” Cannan said.

At the first meeting Freudenberger attended, several people said they wished the community had a gathering place to help residents stay more informed about local issues.

“I said, ‘The good news is we have such a place.’ No one knew or believed me,” Freudenberger said. “That wasn’t their experience of the library. It was really about recognizing that we had to change the perception of who we were or what we were in the community. We started partnering with organizations and doing a lot of collaboration.”

For this reason, the library jumped at the chance to be part of the Libraries Transforming Communities (LTC) initiative, a partnership between the American Library Association and The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. LTC aims to strengthen the role of libraries in helping communities solve problems and work together more effectively. As part of the initiative, Harwood trained and coached 10 library teams, made up of library staff and community partners. Over two years, teams learned to apply Harwood’s Turning Outward approach, a practice or discipline of understanding a community in a deep way and then using that knowledge as a reference point for choices and actions.

Freudenberger said she and the rest of the Red Hook team, which included Cannan, “felt very smug” going into the LTC project, thinking they were used to working collaboratively, listening to the community and getting results.

“We thought we were outwardly focused, but we weren’t,” Cannan said. “We were willing to be partners with people because we wanted to get something out of the partnership. It was transactional.”

After an initial three-day training with The Harwood Institute and ALA in May 2014, Red Hook’s LTC team knew it needed to connect deeper with the community in a way that wasn’t quid pro quo. The group decided to go door-to-door in the small town asking people four basic questions using Harwood’s Ask exercise:

1.    What kind of community do you want to live in? 2.    Why is that important to you? 3.    How is that different from how you see things now? 4.    What are some of the things that need to happen to create that kind of change?

Brent Kovalchik, Village of Red Hook deputy mayor and a member of the LTC team, partnered with a Bard student to do most of the canvassing.

Residents welcomed the chance to share, Freudenberger said.

“People were really eager to let us know what they thought,” she said. “To have someone ask them what they thought and listen to what they had to say— that was very powerful.”

People shared many common concerns. They wanted a safer, better connected community. The town’s stoplight surfaced as one concrete way to help make that kind of community a reality.

“The stoplight was a pretty popular response to these questions,” Kovalchik said. “People wanted safe, walkable space and also a vibrant, economically viable village. The traffic light affected both the vibrancy of the village—people were just getting angry at the light—but also increasing the risks of conflicts with motorists and pedestrians.”

“While the mayor and everyone knew it [the stoplight] was a problem, I don’t think they realized to what extent people were really concerned about it,” Freudenberger said. “When we made it clear it was a priority, it became an action item. The mayor’s office got on it.”

The library’s engagement of the community resulted in laser- like attention to this issue. With support from the mayor’s office, the library encouraged people to contact their state representatives and the Department of Transportation and ask them to prioritize fixing the stoplight. The mayor made additional calls to accelerate the repair.

“It empowered people to take action and also encouraged us on the government level to put it up on a higher priority to address,” said Kovalchik. “Now it’s fixed.”

The library never explicitly publicized its role in harnessing community momentum to repair the stoplight.

“It wasn’t about saying, ‘We’re leading the charge’ or taking the credit,” said Freudenberger. “That’s not the point. The point was to make it happen.”

Freudenberger said while she thought she was Turned Outward because she had been engaging with the community since starting her role at the library, she was not.

She is asking different questions now.

“With LTC, we are looking beyond that,” she said. “Instead of thinking of ourselves as separate institutions, we are thinking of ourselves as a large ecosystem and asking, ‘What are the issues in our community? What really matters to people, and what should we be working on?’”

By the time Freudenberger and her colleagues met with other libraries at a gathering in January 2015, she realized a switch in her viewpoint had happened gradually.

“Outreach is when we go out and tell people about all the great stuff we’re doing at the library,” she said. “Engagement is going out and asking people what their dreams are for the community, then identifying what needs to happen in order to achieve those dreams.”

She listened to other library groups describe their outreach.

“I realized that [what they were describing] was exactly where we were seven months ago,” she said. “Our viewpoint had been changing, and it didn’t occur to me until that point.”

Putting the community first, as opposed to focusing first on how to promote the library, has, ironically, elevated the library.

“It’s been very liberating in a lot of ways,” Freudenberger said. “The more valuable we are to the community, the less I have to talk about the library, because other people do. When other people talk about how valuable we are, it’s much more credible than me saying it.”

Kovalchik said the experience of talking to residents through the Ask exercise “opened my eyes to a lot of things. We make decisions on the village level based on what we hear on the streets, but there are also a lot of assumptions.”

“When we are able to bring more people into the process, they feel they have more ownership in what is going on,” he said. “It’s a better way of working.”

Moving Forward

Hearing residents’ concerns about a lack of activities for teens and young adults in the community, the library, Bard College and Red Hook High School teamed up to provide science, technology and programming seminars in the high school, and then on a mobile program that took the program to rural areas without easy access to the library.

Bard students host summer science camps for younger students at the Red Hook library, and the library pays their stipends. The library and college were also part of a community art exhibit meant to appeal to Red Hook’s young adults.

According to the LTC team, the library’s knowledge of the community has become the lens through which they now evaluate their choices about how to support Red Hook. The stoplight started a momentum that transformed the library into a critical player in solving problems throughout the community. They are continuing their efforts to help Red Hook become better connected, including work on developing a community center.

At a Red Hook Together meeting in spring 2015, nearly a year after their LTC training and more than four years after Freudenberger started promoting the library at her first meeting with this group, the conversation was very different.

“Four and a half years ago, everyone was trying to imagine a place where everyone could go, and now at least six or seven of the people [at the meeting] said they wanted their organizations to be more like the library,” she said. “It was huge, a really significant shift that was a really, really cool and amazing moment. That signaled the biggest shift for our library, that the perception had changed that dramatically.”

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Please note you do not have access to teaching notes, creating a user‐centered library homepage: a case study.

OCLC Systems & Services: International digital library perspectives

ISSN : 1065-075X

Article publication date: 25 May 2012

This paper aims to describe the process, testing, and data analysis of redesigning a library's homepage to create a more user‐centered experience.

Design/methodology/approach

A survey and a usability test were conducted to collect data on users' interactions. The goals were to make design changes catered to users' needs, prior to migrating the site to a content management system.

Recommendations are made to improve the usability of the Ursula C. Schwerin library homepage, as well as considerations for future testing.

Originality/value

This case study will be useful for librarians and web programmers implementing usability tests for the first time. It will also be useful for those focusing on developing a more user‐centered homepage.

• User experience
• User studies
• Information management

Tidal, J. (2012), "Creating a user‐centered library homepage: a case study", OCLC Systems & Services: International digital library perspectives , Vol. 28 No. 2, pp. 90-100. https://doi.org/10.1108/10650751211236631

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2012, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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Chapter 2. Library and Educational Use Cases

Erin Rivero

I n a world increasingly powered by machine learning, library and education environments alike share an emerging focus on artificial intelligence (AI). With an eye toward cultivating AI literacy and leveraging the twenty-first-century boom of voice assistant technology, a number of related library and educational applications have emerged. Such applications span all phases of education, from early learning through higher education institutions and beyond, into the realm of lifelong learning.

Commercial Product Applications for K–12 Environments

K–12 classroom and school library environments are rife with promise for AI development in support of learning initiatives. A few potentially useful voice assistant technology applications developed by commercial vendors include storytime and related comprehension quizzes to check for understanding and emphasize the reading and listening aspects of literacy development. One such commercial vendor dedicated to the primary school education market is Bamboo Learning, whose Highlights Storybooks skill is a collaboration with the well-established Highlights for Children and features animated story narration with accompanying exercises to support language acquisition. 1 Bamboo Learning’s collection of Alexa skills can serve as self-guided educational activities, supplementing traditional teaching and learning. These and other similar learning-oriented Alexa skills could be useful in the elementary school classroom or school library, in public library programming, in homeschooling environments, or in after-school enrichment programs. Such applications are not unlike the self-guided classroom reading stations of yesteryear, formerly featuring vinyl record albums, cassette tapes, and compact discs of children’s audiobooks.

While the outlook for early learning educational applications is promising, reported drawbacks to interactive skills such as those of Bamboo Learning include an awkward processing lag and the more potentially harmful presence of language bias—errors in detecting correct answers when a skill fails to recognize a child’s pronunciation or word order. 2 In the United States, English language learners or children with speech language deficits are likely to encounter such difficulties more than peers without disabilities or whose primary language is English. Thus, educational applications of voice assistant technology should be used with thoughtful adult supervision to mitigate the risk of disadvantaging children who are likely already facing marginalization from human interaction.

AskMyClass is another emerging commercial vendor developing classroom activity–based Alexa skills for teachers and students in pre-K through fifth grade. 3 Activities include community-building icebreakers, transitions from low energy to focused attention, thought starters for sharing during circle time, and at-desk yoga or meditation exercises. 4 While the Teacher and Classroom Helper Alexa skill is free to enable, users can purchase individual or district-level plans to program personalized activities for their unique classroom environment, such as a random, bias-free student name picker. 5 Such activities have the benefit of providing educators with exciting and helpful tools to support daily classroom routines with minimal risk of problematic or harmful interaction.

In the arena of mental health and education psychology, Kickboard is a commercial vendor with education products and services focused on response to intervention (RTI), positive behavior intervention support (PBIS), social-emotional development, and restorative practices to reduce chronic absenteeism and suspension. 6 Schools using Kickboard can optionally link to an accompanying Alexa skill offering real-time behavior information for families who wish to more closely monitor their children by engaging in daily communication with education professionals. 7 In this use case, the Kickboard Alexa skill makes it possible to streamline parent-teacher communication, reducing time, paperwork, and the possibility of lost behavioral records. In turn, families have the opportunity to be more involved in their child’s behavioral progress at pivotal developmental moments, toward the mutual goals of improving performance and decreasing detentions or suspensions associated with poor achievement. A mobile version of the free Alexa skill is available for parents or families who do not own an Amazon device.

In addition to the communication advantages for the aforementioned use case, proponents of voice assistants in K–12 classrooms also recognize the potential upside of leveraging AI technology to support the challenge of large class sizes, particularly when the oft-cited benefits of reduced teacher-student ratios are not feasible. 8 Moreover, technology in the classroom is broadly tied to positive learning outcomes; recent data from the Center for Public Education underscores the positive association of digital resources in classrooms with student achievement in both reading and math. 9

Commercial Product Applications for Libraries

Library vendors also recognize the potential of voice assistant technology for use with commercial product applications geared toward public, academic, or school library environments. One such vendor is Hoopla Digital, whose Alexa skill allows public library patrons to borrow and play audiobooks and full music albums using their linked Hoopla account. 10 Another public or school library–oriented application is Beanstack tracker, an Alexa skill for use with schools or libraries leveraging Beanstack’s data measurement tool for reading challenge events. 11

In terms of public and academic libraries, Libro from ConverSight.ai is a versatile voice-based mobile application option with a smartphone voice product for libraries. 12 Current customers include Iowa State and the University of Iowa, whose Alexa skills are among the most robust of their peer institutions. 13 Companies such as Pellucent are helping library environments build Alexa skills or Google Assistant actions, including the integration of Libro from ConverSight.ai into existing library systems. 14 For example, patrons can use Libro’s Alexa skill to search a library catalog for resource availability; recall, renew, or place holds on library materials; find an item location in book stacks; or ask about library hours and events. 15 Similarly, EBSCO has developed an interface that allows users to access content from its discovery service via Alexa and Google Home. 16 Communico offers a suite of library products and can interact with Alexa for patron account management. 17 Demco has also developed an app for its discovery service that lets patrons use Alexa to check library hours and services, place holds and renew items, discover and register for library events, or reserve meeting rooms. 18 Lastly, Ex Libris has a “Hey Primo” feature, which is a voice search assistant allowing users to enter search terms using their device’s microphone. 19

In sum, public, academic, and school libraries can benefit from engaging with commercial vendor–developed voice assistant technology to support, enhance, or complement existing commercial library products.

Noncommercial Applications to Support Learning and Library Use

One blueprint for educational success in the twenty-first century is not merely to learn how to navigate existing structures, but rather to learn how to invent new structures. As one educational administrator noted, “It’s bad for higher education and society at large if most students at universities are content to play within the existing system and lack the skills to challenge it.” 20 What if the ubiquitous presence of AI and smart speaker technology gives us the opportunity to forge new structures rather than merely inhabiting old or emerging ones?

Educators are trying just that. At MIT Media Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s interdisciplinary research lab is examining the trajectory of technology creation and adoption, toward the goal of positive social change. For example, a new middle school curriculum developed through the lab illuminates what’s under AI’s hood and how AI can be leveraged for the future—teaching and learning efforts that could incorporate voice assistant technology exploration or skill development. 21 What if forward-looking Alexa skill design could be leveraged to combat problems facing library and education environments, from childhood obesity and bullying to fake news in today’s post-truth era? In a classroom, experimenting with Alexa could offer lessons in information literacy, such as fact-finding quests to evaluate the veracity of sources behind answers given by a voice assistant or smart speaker. Students could learn how to question, verify, or challenge a voice assistant answer by exploring its source of truth and seeking out supporting or conflicting sources elsewhere. In this vein, a Google Home device in the library at St. Anne’s-Belfield School in Charlottesville, Virginia, provides ample opportunity for conversation on internet safety, privacy, and digital citizenship. 22 Rather than shy away from the potentially inappropriate use of smart speaker technology by middle school students in a library setting, St. Anne’s embraces the opportunity for students to explore a voice assistant device in a safe space within defined boundaries.

Virtual assistants and AI are among the emerging technologies identified in the EDUCAUSE Horizon Report: 2019 Higher Education Edition , with several cited use cases for college and university settings. 23 Between 2018 and 2019, top tech trend discussions at the Midwinter and Annual meetings of ALA’s Library Information and Technology Association, LITA, included AI, machine learning, and library databases in the age of digital assistants. 24 Accordingly, AI labs, initiatives, digital assistants, and digital assistant applications are popping up at institutions of higher learning across the map, from college dorms to university library environments. For example, Northeastern University developed Husky Helper, a skill for Alexa designed to support student learning experiences by answering frequently asked questions; to support usage and experimentation, the institution gave sixty students Amazon Echo Dots to try out the skill. 25 At Saint Louis University, more than 2,300 Amazon Echo Dots are placed in the residence hall rooms, and the university’s Alexa skill, Ask SLU, now can answer over 200 frequently asked questions, including library hours. 26 Similarly, at Arizona State University, 1,600 Amazon Echo Dots are deployed at the dormitory for engineering students to allow them to learn about voice technology and to work on course projects. ASU also developed its own Alexa skill, Ask ASU, to answer questions about campus-specific information, such as meal plans, sports events, and business hours for the bookstore, library, and fitness center. 27

Stanford University Libraries has a budding AI Studio aiming to develop AI for internal information processing assistance to support collection research and discovery. 28 The University of Rhode Island Libraries also have an AI Lab replete with resources and tools for AI exploration, including Google Home and Amazon Echo devices. 29 The University of Oklahoma has created a Projects in Artificial Intelligence Registry (PAIR) for cross-institutional collaboration, as well as a Digital Skills Hub for AI literacy development. 30 PAIR, a global directory of AI projects in higher education, centralizes scholarly activity by allowing institutions to register, collaborate, and increase scholarly impact. 31 The registry also includes a searchable grant project directory as well as relevant news links. Finally, University of Oklahoma participates in the Alexa in Education initiative by encouraging its students to develop Alexa skills supporting their academic experiences. 32

Amazon’s Alexa in Education program aims to support the education community in enhancing student learning and engagement with voice technology. 33 In 2019, Amazon further launched the Alexa Education Skill API allowing Alexa to closely integrate with campus systems, such as learning management systems, student information systems, and classroom management systems. As a result, students can ask for their assignments and coursework directly through Alexa. Currently, several LMS vendors, including Kickboard, Blackboard, Canvas, and Coursera, are developing their Alexa skills using this API. 34

For higher education, Amazon identifies four broad use cases for its digital assistant technology:

• “Help students study.” For example, an Alexa quiz skill can help students study; a virtual office hours skill lets instructors offer answers to the most commonly asked questions at any time.
• “Build smart campus experiences.” For example, instructors can ask Alexa to turn on the projector and screen, dim the light, and adjust the temperature; students can ask Alexa to book a group study room or check computer availability in the library.
• “Foster engagement and productivity.” For example, students can ask Alexa for directions to a location on campus, look up campus events, or connect to campus resources and services.
• “Build student-driven Alexa skills.” For example, faculty and staff can involve students in developing innovative Alexa skills by hosting a hackathon or incorporating skill development in class or work-study projects. 35

Beyond the aforementioned use cases, additional Alexa skills exist for higher education, as well as for academic, public, and special libraries; a query of the Alexa skills database sheds further light on the variety of skills emerging for library and education environments. 36

Alexa Skills Database Query for Library

Amazon announced its January 2019 milestone of surpassing 80,000 Alexa skills worldwide, including over 56,000 skills in the United States alone. A search for library in the Alexa skills database yielded ninety-seven results one year later on January 2, 2020, compared to fewer than a dozen results from a similar search in August of 2018—an exponential increase in available skills. 37 Roughly half of the latest search hits (fifty Alexa skills) may be broadly categorized as recreational or educational in nature, spanning a variety of subject areas such as entertainment, gaming, literature, news, nutrition, mindfulness, music, religion, technology, tourism, wine, and zoology. An additional thirty-four search hits include skills designed to enhance services or content access at public libraries (nineteen skills), special libraries (four skills), or academic libraries (eleven skills). Two search hits feature skills developed broadly for higher education institutions, and three search hits are skills by commercial vendors whose products are tailored for libraries. Additional commercial vendor skills of this nature exist, as well as skills developed for people with disabilities.

In the realm of lifelong learning, Alexa allows public library patrons to keep up with library events, hours of operation, and fun facts at Delaware County District Library, while Houston Public Library’s Alexa skill (developed by a third party) allows users to query the online public access catalog. 38 A dozen other search hits reflect skills in similar categories supporting public library usage or content discovery. Additionally, a handful of public libraries or third-party developers have created distinctive Alexa skills for miscellaneous use cases, including managing patron accounts at Granville Public Library, providing facts about forthcoming facility improvement at Spokane Public Library, delivering a Sioux City Public Library–produced literary culture podcast, and listing popular fiction titles at Los Angeles County Public Library (this last skill developed by a third party). 39

Additionally, several special libraries have developed unique Alexa skills, including some in support of health education and patrons with disabilities. The skill NLM in Focus is an online newsletter developed by a third party to offer Alexa users a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the US National Library of Medicine programs and services. 40 The same third-party developer created Disaster Health News, providing Alexa users with disaster-related news and health information from the Disaster Information Management Research Center at the US National Library of Medicine and the US National Institutes of Health. 41 The Recording Library of West Texas, a nonprofit dedicated to recording text to audio for people with mental, physical, or visual impairments, developed a skill that allows patrons to listen to books, newspapers, magazines, grocery ads, stories, and more. 42 Lastly, the Blind Foundation of New Zealand has a skill that allows its registered users to access the foundation’s audio library of over 15,000 titles, including books and magazines. 43

Along the lines of the above special libraries use cases geared toward people with disabilities, Hennig lists a case study from a retirement community in Carlsbad, California, where a majority of the respondents were in their eighties and had hearing or visual impairments, mobility impairments, or hand tremors that made it difficult to type or use a smartphone; 100 percent of respondents trying out Alexa reported it made their lives easier; uses included audiobooks, a potential benefit of connecting users with disabilities to libraries as digital repositories. 44

A dozen search hits reflect skills designed for higher education institutions and their libraries. At Iowa State University Library, patrons use Alexa to learn about library collections, spaces, and history, as well as manage devices in group study rooms. 45 This skill, Parks Libro, is the only academic library–developed Alexa skill presently listed on the Projects in Artificial Intelligence Registry (PAIR) maintained by the University of Oklahoma Libraries. 46 However, there are several institutions whose projects could benefit from being included in the registry. One is Northwestern Law Library, whose Alexa skill answers basic questions relating to the Northwestern Pritzker Legal Research Center, as well as legal research more generally. 47 The University of the West Indies also has an Alexa skill showcasing the range of campus library services offered and answering frequently asked questions such as hours of operation for each campus library. 48 Additional skills developed for academic institutions and academic libraries include library catalog search queries, patron account management, library hours of operation, library or campus event information, library collection facts and historical information, library FAQs, library locations and contact information, and library- or campus-related news (summarized in table 2.1).

Parks Libro

https://www.lib.iastate.edu/spaces-computers/computers/parks-libro

Case Study: Inside the Development of Alexa Skills for USC Libraries

At the University of Southern California Libraries, a pilot project was conducted in 2018 with the goals to explore possible Alexa library use cases as well as learn more about voice assistant technology. The project team included staff members from both public services and library IT. With funding from the dean of the libraries, six second-generation Alexa devices were purchased, and several computer science students were hired to support the development of Alexa skills. The project began by experimenting with Alexa; each team member was given an Alexa device to try out. To learn more about Amazon’s voice assistant, team members reviewed library literature on voice assistant technology, tested a handful of existing library-related Alexa skills, discussed ways Alexa can meet the needs of various USC Libraries user populations (e.g., undergraduate, graduate, faculty, staff, and alumni), and brainstormed possible use cases for Alexa in library settings.

During this initial exploration phase, the IT team members started studying the Alexa Skills Kit, the tools for developing custom Alexa skills, as well as attending Alexa skills–building workshops and exploring the cloud-based Alexa skill development environment. The IT team members learned that there are two platforms for building an Alexa skill: the Amazon Developer Console (ADC) and Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Alexa Skills Kit

https://developer.amazon.com/en-US/alexa/alexa-skills-kit

Amazon Developer Console

https://developer.amazon.com/en-US/alexa

Amazon Web Services

https://aws.amazon.com/

ADC is where Alexa skills can be created, managed, tested, published, and tracked in terms of user analytics. The IT team members determined they could use ADC to design a potential library skill’s interaction model and define its intents (an action to fulfill a user’s inquiry), slots (variables in the intent), and utterances (alternative versions of the intent). For example, when patrons ask for a specific newspaper in the library, the Alexa newspaper intent includes the following possible utterances: “Does the library have the Los Angeles Times ?” “Do you have the Los Angeles Times ?” “Where is the Los Angeles Times ?” “How do I access the Los Angeles Times ?” “How do I find the Los Angeles Times in the library?” The slots or variables of the newspaper intent can be Wall Street Journal , New York Times , or Washington Post .

AWS is where the IT team members determined they could craft the functionality of each custom Alexa skill, such as the return responses to an inquiry. This is also where the programming code is developed. The supported programming languages include Node.js, Java, Javascript, Python, C#, or Go. For the above newspaper intent, the return response is

The USC Libraries does have access to the Los Angeles Times . To find this, or any other newspaper:

• Go to the USC Libraries main homepage
• Select Find from the main menu
• Select Journals from the drop down menu
• And search for Los Angeles Times or any other newspaper.

Figure 2.1 illustrates the information flow and interaction in a typical query transaction.

The team’s research and discussions led them to develop three Alexa skills based on their local needs, requiring coordination across multiple systems. Application programming interface (API), a communication protocol allowing data exchange between two systems, is used for Alexa to access resources in library systems, such as a library website or library catalog.

After each skill was developed and tested, the team had to submit it to Amazon for review and certification. The skill needed to meet Amazon’s policy guidelines and security requirements, in addition to passing all required functional tests. Once a skill becomes certified, Amazon publishes it in the Alexa Skills Store and makes it freely available for anyone to use. The certification process takes about a week.

Alexa Skills Store

https://www.amazon.com/alexa-skills/?ie=UTF8&node=13727921011

For each skill listed below, the project team wrote a brief description of what the skill does, its invocation name (the name used to invoke the skill), the source from which the answer is drawn, the APIs used (available on GitHub 49 ), and usage examples:

Description: Provide answers to frequently asked questions about USC Libraries, Collections, and Services

Invocation name: USC Libraries

Source: LibAnswers FAQ database by Springshare

• “Alexa, open USC Libraries”
• “Alexa, ask USC Libraries, are books available to be borrowed by alumni?”

GitHub software repository link: https://github.com/ilsstudent/LibrariesFAQ

Description: Provide information about USC Libraries current events and library hours

Invocation name: USC Events

Source: Drupal API from library’s event site ( https://libraries.usc.edu/events ) for library event information and Ex Libris Alma library management system API for library hours

• “Alexa, open USC Events.”
• “Alexa, ask USC Events, what are the events this week?”

GitHub software repository link: https://github.com/ilsstudent/EventsAndHours

Description: Query USC Libraries catalog by author, title, and keyword

Invocation name: USC Trojans

Source: Ex Libris Alma library management system API

• “Alexa, open USC Trojans.”
• Title search: “Alexa, ask USC Trojans to search for the title Harry Potter.”
• Author search: “Alexa, ask USC Trojans to search for the author Hemingway.”

GitHub software repository link: https://github.com/ilsstudent/AlexaLibrarySearch

Case Study Assessment

Among the three skills developed, the USC Libraries Search skill allows users to query the library catalog by author, title, and keyword through API. The skill was complicated to develop and its performance less certain as there are unlimited search terms, phrases, and languages for catalog search. To learn more about how accurately Alexa recognizes pronounced search terms as well as retrieves items from the library catalog, the project team created a set of ten search queries for each type of search. Sixteen library staff and student workers volunteered to perform these searches. As illustrated by the test results in table 2.2, keyword search was the most successful, with an 87 percent success rate, followed by title search (78 percent). Author search was the least accurate, with a 58 percent success rate. The lower success rate of author search is attributed to the failure of Alexa’s automatic speech recognition system to transcribe proper names, especially foreign author names, into correct written words. Famous authors, such as Pablo Neruda or Ernest Hemingway, might be in Alexa’s vocabulary, but it failed to recognize most of the foreign authors. In addition, Alexa currently has no way to distinguish names with the same pronunciation. For example, a search for Jane Austen retrieved titles by Jane Austin . This finding coincided with the research results from Loup Ventures; in its testing of four smart speakers, it found that “nearly every misunderstood question involved a proper noun, often the name of a local town or restaurant.” 50

Foreign accents affect Alexa’s performance as well. The project team found that there is a slight difference in the outcomes between native English speakers and non-native speakers. In general, native speakers had a higher success rate. Other frustrations cited by the project testers included long pauses after query, interference from background noise, long wait times as Alexa read through the search results, and difficulty with searches with too many hits.

In a recent study of searching the top thirty New York Times bestsellers in both fiction and nonfiction categories, Metrock found that the five voice assistants (Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri, Cortana, and Samsung’s Bixby) were capable of recognizing only 43.2 percent of basic queries related to these bestseller titles. Google Assistant performed the most optimally, with a 72.5 percent success rate, followed by Cortana’s 60.8 percent, then Alexa’s 44.2 percent. 51 According to Metrock, such poor performance by voice assistants can potentially lead to publishers’ lost sales of $17 million. 52 The less-than-satisfactory performance of Alexa in both this study and the USC Libraries case study indicates that a better approach and further improvement is necessary before voice assistants can be reasonably used for searching library catalogs.

Other Voice Assistant Technology in Higher Education

At Deakin University in Australia, the library participates in a campus-wide development of a smartphone-based virtual assistant, Deakin Genie. 53 Based on IBM’s Watson AI services, Deakin Genie was launched in 2017. Designed as a smart digital assistant, Genie is available at the Apple or Android app stores and offers a range of utilities, tools, and services to support student learning. Similar to Siri, Genie comes with a conversational interface. Students either can ask or text Genie a question, and Genie will respond with the answer on the student’s mobile device, sometimes with links to resources and websites for more information. Some of the Deakin Genie uses cases are the following:

• Library support: Students can ask Genie to search the library catalog and access library resources, course reserves, and instructional videos. Genie will answer frequently asked questions and provide library hours, refer patrons to the library’s website to book a room, display patron’s checkout items and holds, or check availability of library computers.
• Personal organizer and time management tools: Genie can display a student’s class schedule, due dates for assignments and exams, task lists, and campus news or events. It can also send out reminders, as well as supportive and motivating messages.
• Communication: Students can chat and message with peers, mentors, and student support staff. 54

While USC Libraries has demonstrated what is possible with regard to a variety of library support tools as separate Alexa skills, Deakin University’s smartphone-based virtual assistant Deakin Genie represents what is possible in the realm of a comprehensive range of student support services.

Iowa State University and the University of Iowa are both leveraging the ThickStat Libro product developed to connect Alexa with Primo, the integrated library system in place at both institutions, yet the specific use cases vary by institution despite the range of possibilities offered by the commercial vendor. This illustrates the reality that differently size institutions have different needs and options informed by levels of institutional flexibility as well as resources dedicated for project sustainability and stakeholder buy-in. Amanda Wheatley and Sandy Hervieux noted the possible advantage of small private institutions of higher education with a more dedicated focus among faculty over larger institutions more bound to bureaucratic processes. 55

Summary and Takeaways

Public library use cases for Alexa skills are broadly ranging, from facility improvement facts to popular fiction titles. While several public libraries have developed Alexa skills for patron account management, library catalog search, and library hours and events information, special library use cases include a health-oriented focus and can support users with visual impairment. Of note is the fact that Alexa skills are still something of a Wild Wild West, meaning they can be created by third-party developers. While this reality can be leveraged for powerful collaborations between commercial product vendors and clients, this can also make for less-than-optimal skills developed by no-name individuals unaffiliated with the named institutions they purport to represent. Depending on how or when organizations choose to take the plunge into smart speaker or voice assistant technology applications, individual pioneers may have already begun, for better or for worse.

In K–12 school environments, learning-oriented Alexa skills can be used to supplement teaching efforts so long as teachers and coaches aren’t replacing traditional educational methodology with skills running on autopilot without adult supervision. Activity-based Alexa skills can support pre-K and elementary school classroom routines and transitions, while skills communicating real-time classroom behavioral interventions from educators to parents can offer new, rapid avenues for family engagement at critical moments in a child’s development. At middle school and high school levels, exploring what’s under the hood of smart speaker and voice assistant technology can provide valuable learning opportunities on information literacy and digital citizenship.

In higher education environments, students can engage with voice assistants to support library usage and learning experiences. Some students may even dive into developing Alexa skills through the Alexa in Education initiative and emerging institutional resources to support AI literacy. USC Libraries is one of several institutions of higher education engaged in skill development and testing processes. Learnings from USC Libraries and Deakin University in Australia, among others, underscore the importance of embracing new technology initiatives to enhance and support learning and discovery. USC Libraries in particular identified several broadly applicable lessons learned from its experience in Alexa skill development which may prove useful for institutions considering their own foray into creating and implementing skills:

• Alexa voice recognition technology is limited by its available source contents (i.e., Alexa doesn’t search Google, though it can search Wikipedia, limiting reliability, breadth, and veracity of source material from an information literacy perspective).
• Projects are both propelled and bound by their level of sustainability , as determined by resources. At times, resources may be limited in term or scope of project, which can be at odds with long-term needs or user expectations.
• There is strategic or symbolic value in investing in development of Alexa skills, or value added for the library as a modern institution embracing available technology and positioning itself for future evolution as libraries continually seek to remain relevant in their communities and spheres of influence.

In terms of other higher education applications, Iowa State and the University of Iowa are both collaborating with a commercial product vendor whose Alexa skill, Libro, can interact with the Primo integrated library system to support user search through voice assistant technology. Interestingly, the specific skill configurations of each institution are different, although they share the same skill development vendor, illustrating the varying budgets, needs, and implementation flexibility within higher education. This further highlights the beneficial purpose of the University of Oklahoma’s PAIR directory to register higher education projects in AI so that beta skill development in one institution can strengthen and inform the development experience of another, increasing scholarly impact across the board. Ultimately there are varying options for institutions interested in incorporating voice assistant technology:

• Buy: Use a commercial product, such as Libro.
• Build: Develop your own skills.
• Collaborate: Be part of the campus initiative, working with campus IT and other groups in developing a campus-wide Alexa skill.

In all, library and education use cases abound for voice assistant technology, increasingly used by today’s generation of digital natives. Organizations interested in implementing smart speaker or voice assistant applications can benefit from surveying the current ecosystem for existing developments in similar environments. Opportunities for collaboration in higher education can further pave the way for future trail blazing in AI literacy, learning, and discovery as library and education institutions seek to stand on the cutting edge of tomorrow.

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Alexa skill diagram

Table 2.1. Higher education search results from Alexa skill database library keyword query

• https://www.amazon.com/CSUSB-News/dp/B074WRD8TK/ref=sr_1_79?keywords=library&qid=1578636648&s=digital-skills&sr=1-79
• https://www.amazon.com/FIU-Libraries-RefTech-FAQ/dp/B0837L42D5/ref=sr_1_14?keywords=library&qid=1578635464&s=digital-skills&sr=1-14
• https://www.amazon.com/ThickStat-Parks-Libro-Public/dp/B07HF6VCZN/ref=sr_1_69?keywords=library&qid=1577389523&s=digital-skills&sr=1-69
• https://www.amazon.com/Iowa-State-University-Library-IowaStateLibFacts/dp/B07BH2DXW9/ref=sr_1_44?keywords=library&qid=1578635952&s=digital-skills&sr=1-44
• https://www.amazon.com/Northwestern-Pritzker-Legal-Research-Center/dp/B07WZJNX1Q/ref=sr_1_10?keywords=library&qid=1578634829&s=digital-skills&sr=1-10
• https://www.amazon.com/Illiana-PC-Purdue-Library-News/dp/B07K5DQQ3S/ref=sr_1_24?keywords=library&qid=1578635770&s=digital-skills&sr=1-24
• https://www.amazon.com/Gerard-Au-UCLA-Newsroom/dp/B074X6YQYQ/ref=sr_1_75?keywords=library&qid=1577389523&s=digital-skills&sr=1-75
• https://www.amazon.com/University-of-Illinois-Library-Checker/dp/B07HGW7W72/ref=sr_1_19?keywords=library&qid=1577335910&s=digital-skills&sr=1-19
• https://www.amazon.com/ThickStat-InfoHawk/dp/B07MZY4JBS/ref=sr_1_86?keywords=library&qid=1577390684&s=digital-skills&sr=1-86
• https://www.amazon.com/USC-ILS-Libraries-Events/dp/B07MD161WW/ref=sr_1_20?keywords=library&qid=1578635320&s=digital-skills&sr=1-20
• https://www.amazon.com/USC-ILS-Libraries-Search/dp/B07L7KHPKB/ref=sr_1_23?keywords=library&qid=1578635584&s=digital-skills&sr=1-23
• https://www.amazon.com/USC-ILS-Libraries-FAQ/dp/B07H854LPP/ref=sr_1_27?keywords=library&qid=1578635584&s=digital-skills&sr=1-27
• https://www.amazon.com/The-University-the-West-Indies/dp/B07SK6QMMY/ref=sr_1_10?keywords=library&qid=1577318189&s=digital-skills&sr=1-10

Table 2.2. Successful rate of library catalog searches with Alexa skill testing

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Sponsor:  Userful

10 Key Questions to Ask When Evaluating Public Computing Solutions

When searching for the right public computing solution, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the options out there. Librarians always want to ensure they’re getting the best solution for their needs. Knowing the right questions to ask saves time, and ensures librarians make a good purchase decision. This document outlines the  10 Key Questions to Ask When Evaluating Public Computing Solutions . It is a must-have for all library technology decision-makers.

Click Here To Download This PDF

Sponsor:  Gale Cengage Learning

Learn How Public Libraries Can Deliver Accredited High School Diplomas to Adults

Read about Denver Public Library’s (DPL) solution to a challenge uncovered in their community needs assessment—14 percent of their adults population did not complete high school.

To address this local educational crisis, DPL implemented the program Career Online High School, a high school completion program that allows libraries to offer accredited high school diplomas and career certificates to adult learners.

Sponsor:  School Outfitters

Finding New Life in an Old Space: Making the move from library to media center

The very idea of libraries is evolving. Traditional hushed, book-lined environments are being replaced by contemporary workspaces and becoming hubs of collaboration. School Outfitters had an opportunity to work with a local school to modernize their space, transforming it from a sparsely-populated room to one of the busiest in the building.

Posted:  April 2016

Data-Driven Decision Making Ideally Locates New Library Construction

How well do you know your community? Who are they? What are they interested in? How do you know?

Public libraries are the core of their communities and with Analytics On Demand, you can take data-driven decision making and community engagement to the next level.

Learn how Dedham Public Library determined where to build new library and developed new services with  Gale’s Analytics On Demand .

Sponsor:  Book Systems

Posted:  March 2016

Not many libraries migrate to a new integrated library system (ILS) twice in one year – but the Blount County Public Library (BCPL) did! This case study explores BCPL Director, K.C. Williams’ experience and their decision to leave the statewide system and implement Atriuum to meet their needs.

Sponsor:  Comprise

How You Can Benefit from Self Service Payments!

Every day, Spartanburg County Public Libraries uses Comprise’s revolutionary unified payment solution to process tens of thousands of dollars in payments for print services, fines and fees, and donations; most of it without staff involvement! Libraries that have executed the unified payment system have seen their total revenues grow, perfect audits, and happier staff & patrons, which the Spartanburg County Public Libraries can vouch for.

Comprise offers the only PCI-compliant Unified Payment System encompassing point of sale, online, and in-library self-service transactions with a full portfolio of consolidated reports. Our system is compatible with all leading ILS. We work directly with our customers and are committed to their satisfaction 24/7. Learn how your library can begin building a Unified Payment System and offer convenience to your patrons at the same time!

Sponsor:  Infor

See How Kingston Frontenac PL Created a One-Stop Discovery Resource for Patrons

Increasingly, libraries are looking to replace the traditional online catalog with a discovery layer that’s more engaging and visually appealing. A new approach to discovery combines the catalog with the library’s website. Now library users have a single environment to explore not only collections, but also the wide array of services the library offers.

Iguana is a web portal and discovery platform that brings a library’s website and catalog together in one environment. Implemented world-wide, Iguana is becoming the platform of choice for libraries looking to revamp their web presence while providing users a best-in-breed discovery service. At Kingston Frontenac Public Library in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, the library has seen the benefits: more engaged users who explore collections and partake in the many services that the library offers.

Click Here To Download The Iguana Case Study

Academic Insights: Innovation From  LJ  Movers Class of 2016

Posted:  Mar 2017

Posted:  August 2016

The Challenge: Combining a Robust ILS with Ease of Implementation and Use

Posted:  June 2013

Get Print. Get Digital. Get Both!

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Ethan Smith

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