Robots take over Chicago State University Library

Well they didn�t really take over the entire library; they merely took over the jobs of librarians and the hassles of students. Students no longer have to search through the massive stacks of books to find that obscure book their philosophy teacher asked them to pick up. Every book, CD, and DVD in the library are tagged with a radio-frequency ID chip for the robots to detect. While librarians get to keep their job organizing media published after 1990, the robots automate the process for all other media. These fork-like machines can detect, pick-up, and store all the materials in a large, three-story facility; it would be funny to see some freshman trying to get a book from the top of a three-story high stack of books.

When working at maximum capacity, these robots can travel at a whopping 7 mph, meaning they can retrieve 5 books in an average of 2.5 minutes. No human could ever get 5 books in 2.5 minutes unless it was by the same author. This quick return time in retrieving books will save hours (literary) for students at Chicago State University, where the average time for students to retrieve 5 books was 2 hours. Now they can spend time reading the books instead of looking for them. Now they students at CSU can really enjoy their $38 million facility in its entirety, with its 800,000 volumes. Now the librarians don�t have to yell at kids making out in the library for being so loud. — Nick Rice

CSU library [Wired News]