CSUN Breaks Ground for the World’s First Robot-Staffed Library

Cal State Northridge officials in ground-breaking ceremonies Friday marked the start of work on the world’s first automated library, which will use robots to retrieve books.

The automated system, called Leviathan II by campus librarians, is part of a two-year, $18.5-million expansion of the university’s Oviatt Library. Final state funding for the project was approved in July, said CSUN’s dean of libraries, Norman Tanis.

“The leviathan which swallowed Jonah whole disgorged him on the shore three days later,” Tanis said. “Our students will be able to select a title from a computer terminal and our Leviathan will disgorge the book in five to 10 minutes.”

Officials of Eaton-Kenway, the firm that is designing and building the system, hope that the idea works as well for libraries as it does for industry. The system, which uses a modified forklift equipped with mechanical arms, is used to retrieve products in grocery and electronics warehouses, company Vice President James D. Larsen said.

“Rather than having humans walk up and down the aisles, the machine does it,” he said.

The six robots planned for the CSUN system, which initially will include 500,000 books, will retrieve entire shelves of books after users make their requests. Then a human librarian will pick out the exact selection, campus officials said. All books will be marked with computer-coded labels.

The system is supposed to cut down on the amount of space needed to store books, library officials said. It is not intended to replace librarians, Tanis said. Instead, it should reduce the amount of time that users spend finding and retrieving books, he said.

At the ceremony, CSUN President James W. Cleary was presented with the library’s 1 millionth book--a rare, 17th-Century treatise on academics published in Amsterdam.

“In terms of physical resources, the library is the heart of an institution,” Cleary said. “This improvement will be a real boost to students and faculty alike.”

The library expansion will add 90,000 square feet to the east and west sides of the 130,000-square-foot facility, as well as 100 more computer terminals. The card catalogue system will also become fully computerized, officials said.

Efforts to expand the library started about 10 years ago. Construction crews began work Sept. 5.