Investing of Chatbots to Enhance the Library Services

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become an indispensable tool in our daily lives and is a concept that refers to complex tasks that usually require significant human effort. Chatbots stand out as one of the primary applications of artificial intelligence, aiming to foster an interactive dialogue environment between humans and machines to address inquiries through textual or voice interfaces that simulate human cognition. Libraries can serve as an ideal environment for implementing this technology, where it can deliver advanced information services and streamline repetitive routine tasks typically performed by library staff. The paper discusses the applications of chatbots in automating library services, including reference services, user recommendations, information retrieval, data analysis, and other related processes, and their mechanism of action in processing natural language queries and responding to them accurately. Through a web survey, the study identified eighteen chatbot models that could be implemented in libraries. This survey provided details about these bots, including their type (free or commercial), ownership, release date, operating platforms, and key features. This allows libraries to choose from them. Integrating chatbots into libraries will open new horizons for enhancing their services and improving the user experience. Despite the benefits offered by these chatbots, they face several challenges and concerns regarding their usage, notably data privacy and security, and bias in retrieval. It is expected that in the future, these chatbots will become a fundamental component of providing library services.