Intelligent Systems: The World of AI for Libraries Roy Balleste, Head of Public Services St. Thomas University Law Library

摘要

The first decade of the twenty-first century promises to be revolutionary for law libraries. Part of that revolution will come due to advances in the development of Intelligent Systems applications. One of those applications is the development of Artificial Intelligence-Based Agents, which promise to bring the next generation of technological tools to libraries. Consider that my purpose is to share with you the potential of this technology and to show you how you may set it up at your library at a very low cost. You may outsource this type of service if that is your preference. Here I offer an avenue for those adventurous librarians that want to set up their own AI Agent with minimal or no help. This technology seems to be developing fast and if weare not careful, it could end up passing us by. The government and private sectors already have acknowledged the impact that AI technologies have had in their businesses. Some of these institutions include names such as: Coca Cola, Pepsi Cola, Boeing, Miller Brewing Company, Volkswagen, Ragu, lams Company, the Government of Canada, and the District of Columbia, among others. These AI agents or "chat bots" have the capability to greet, guide, and even train patrons from the magic of their virtual environments. Consider that an AI agent is a handy tool because it can be "trained" to interact with patrons and to answer questions based on your own specifications. Putting it simply, the ideal AI agent is "created" with three main components: Face, Voice and Brain. Our agent's face (Flash) and voice (text-to-speech or TTS) were designed with software provided by Oddcast Video Technologies. Oddcast provides the tools to design the face and provides the TTS engine. Finally, Artificial Intelligence Markup Language (AIML) is the 'engine' that powers our agent's brain, hi theory, AIML is an XML-based language, but obviously more powerful. You will find that your interaction with AIML is intuitive, and that you are not required to have any knowledge of XML. Could librarians benefit from such technology? Is it at all possible? Today, I find myself involved in the process of developing Aki, our law library AI agent. This AI entity was launched in June 2003 as a pilot project. The use of this AI-Based Agent is my latest effort to improve the services provided from the Reference Desk. I believe that AI-Based Agents will help law libraries market their services and will also expand their information delivery, especially after hours.