Lancaster Library Trial
It’s Your Library, What’s Your View?
Monday the 2nd November marked the first day of the five-week VoiceYourView (vYv) trial at Lancaster Central Library. The library has recently re-opened following a £640,000 refurbishment sponsored by the Big Lottery Funds.
In the next few weeks the general public will be able to share their views about the new look of the library and its services through a range of channels. These include speech-recognition tools and natural parsing language applications as well as paper postcards.
The use of the technology-mix seems to capture the mood of change as lending librarian Liz Cox suggests: "New technologies are taking over but many from the public have a strong affection for the 1930’s image of the library. The real issue is to understand how to manage the transition between the new role of the library and its past".
The Central Library partly re-opened last month: the main entrance at ground floor level is now accessible to the public whilst the first floor is expected to reopen in a fortnight. The public has been quick to react to the change “It feels something from the future, but I like it” one user comments, whilst another wonders “Where are the old shelves gone?” fearing for the loss of the library's past.
"We are not just a place to get books," observes Rosemary Martlew who also works at the library “we are turning into a fully fledged cultural centre and we need to adapt to this change".
Can such diverse needs be satisfied? It is hard to tell. For now, the main task for vYv is to have as many people as possible engaged in providing library staff with a balanced and actionable range of views “People tend not to make noise when they are happy” says Liz Cox. “The reality is that you might get 30 negative comments where there might be as many as 3,000 people that used the facility and they are happy with it” remarks Rosemary Martlew.
The first floor still remains closed and is due to re-open on Monday 16th November with a new "sanctuary" area dedicated to peaceful reading and studying. That day will also mark the release of vYv technology when the 1,500 people who use the library every day will be able to leave feedback visible to all.
Library users will be able to record their views via telephone before a computer converts their words into a written message. Everyone in the library will be able to see their comments appear on large plasma TV screens. People's voices will be automatically analysed and turned into a range of graphical displays: from word-clouds highlighting the most popular topics to glowing orbs whose changing colours will signal the mood of the participants.
The trial is a co-ordinated effort between the Universities of Brunel, Coventry and Lancaster and it will be using a variety of channels for capturing people's views about the library and its new look. People of all ages and skills will be able to have their say through a broad range of media, from non-tech paper postcards to sophisticated speech-recognition tools integrated with visualisation models based on Artificial Intelligence techniques.
Over the past three months the vYv team has been working closely with the library staff to find out how people can voice their views in ways that can make the space truly their own. The vYv project started in July 2009 and this first trial specifically focuses on people's feedback on public space design. The information gathered in relation to how people interact with the technology will inform future application development in the domain of safety and crime reduction.
