The Raczynski Library wants to create a network of book machines in the capital city of Wielkopolska. The book vending machines are to be set up in places where the inhabitants of Poznan have poorer access to library facilities.
The promotional department of the Poznan library informed about the commencement of consultations with housing estate councils to select the best locations for the network of book vending machines that are currently being created.
‘The book vending machines, unlike in other Polish cities, are not to be placed next to branch libraries, but rather in places where residents have the weakest access to library facilities,’ informed the library.
The use of a network of automated bookstore machines is part of the ‘Artificial Intelligence in the Service of Books’ project. It aims at developing reading among others by improving the competences of library employees, using innovative tools in the area of new technologies, including artificial intelligence, and exchanging good practices with the partner from Norway.
The Raczynski Library has announced that the project includes, among other things, creating a system of literary recommendations for readers, which will use e. g. information about books borrowed and read. The project assumes the use of innovative methods of selecting and purchasing novelties for libraries, cataloguing and making library resources available. ‘People of the Book’ festival is also planned.
‘If the situation of the coronavirus pandemic allows, during the event, there will be meetings with authors, panels and workshops during which Readers will have an opportunity to learn more about the work of people connected with books – writers, translators, illustrators, editors, publishers and literary critics’ – stated the Raczynski Library.
The cost of the project is nearly PLN 2 million, of which the funding from the Norwegian and EEA funds is almost PLN 1.7 million.