[Wactclc-primo] "Alexa, where is the movies section?"

[Guidry, Wade]

One of the themes I saw in the ELUNA 2019 presentations, that I was going to mention on Tuesday but forgot, is the beginnings of AI use in libraries.

Two presentations at ELUNA centered around the use of Alexa in the library.

On a personal note, I recently bought an Amazon Firestick+, which is basically "smart TV" functionality on a small HDMI-connected computing device.

Built into the Firestick is a cut-down version of Alexa. I hadn't previously paid much attention to Alexa, Echo, Siri, etc. But after using the Alexa functionality even briefly, I realized what game changer this stuff could be.

At the same time, I saw these Alexa-oriented presentations, and did some quick searching on other library efforts around AI.

This stuff is coming, and the potential use of these voice activated devices in libraries for reference, accessibility and even language translation services is pretty intriguing.

I'll probably be looking this summer, just out of personal interest, at how to program Alexa "skills", which I believe are the building blocks of enabling custom abilities into Alexa. Such as answering such questions as "where is the bathroom?", "when does the library close?", "where is the movies section?".

Davis, Greg (2019) Connecting Primo to Amazon Alexa.<http://documents.el-una.org/1927/> In: ELUNA 2019 Annual Meeting, April 29-May 3, 2019, Atlanta, GA.

Shih, Win and Muraoka, Royd (2019) Say Library: When Alexa Meets Primo.<http://documents.el-una.org/1812/> In: ELUNA 2019 Annual Meeting, April 29-May 3, 2019, Atlanta, GA.


Wade Guidry
WACTCLC
Library Consortium Services Manager
wade at bigbend.edu<mailto:wade at bigbend.edu>
http://www.wactclc.org<http://www.wactclc.org/>
509.760.4474


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