Augmented-Reality Shelving: Q&A with Miami University's Bo Brinkman on the ShelvAR App
By David Rapp Apr 18, 2011A YouTube video posted by William "Bo" Brinkman, an associate professor in the computer science and software engineering department at Miami University, Oxford, OH, caused something of a sensation just before the recent Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Conference in Philadelphia.
It was an advance peek at the augmented-reality-based shelving app he and undergraduate research assistant Matt Hodges at the university's Augmented Reality Research Group are developing for Android tablets. Brinkman talked about the app during a panel at the conference, and it has plenty of "wow" factor.
Using the tablet's camera and small, printed QR-code-like tags on book spines, the app can, at a glance, show when books are out of order on a shelf—and where they should be moved.
The app—known as ShelvAR—is still a long way from being available for general use, but it has the potential to be quite a time saver and could potentially be used for other library purposes, such as inventory location. LJ spoke to Brinkman about the project.
LJ: How did this project come about?
Brinkman: About a year ago I was brainstorming, trying to think of nonentertainment applications of augmented reality [AR] on smart phones (that is, applications where an AR interface is clearly more useful than the non-AR version). My wife Stacy [Brinkman], who is the art and architecture librarian at Miami University [Libraries], was telling me about some of the systems they were considering for inventory management, and it occurred to me that such applications might be a good fit for AR.
What kind of codes does the system use?
The philosophy behind them is most similar to "Data Matrix" codes. All of the various codes...follow the same basic principles. Ours are customized specifically for the intended application. Unlike most QR code applications, we are trying to read dozens at a time, instead of [one] at a time.
How wide does a book's binding have to be to have enough space for a code sticker?
We are not yet certain. Our goal is [a quarter-inch], but it too soon to tell whether that will be practical. Right now the biggest constraint is the resolution of smart phone cameras. As the resolutions go up we may be able to shrink the tags more.
Were there any unforeseen technical problems?
At the time we started the project, the camera controls built into the Android system were designed mostly for taking pictures or videos, but not for real-time video processing. We had to work around these limitations in order to implement augmented reality. Subsequently, the Android developers have added the functionality we needed to their API [application programming interface].
Is the eventual plan to fully integrate the system with a library's catalog system?
For shelf-reading functionality you will not need any integration with the library's catalog system, which I hope will be good for small libraries that do not have a lot of technical resources. For the inventory application we hope to have a public API so that it can be easily integrated into any catalog system that chooses to use it. Of course whether or not this happens depends on how the app gets commercialized.
Do you plan to market this app?
This is the hardest question to answer. Because the system involves some inventions which may be patentable, we have to work with our Technology Transfer Office at Miami to make this decision. They must first evaluate our inventions to determine whether or not they are worth patenting. Once that decision is made I will have a better idea of what the future holds.
Do you foresee other potential uses for this app, beyond shelving?
Yes, these tags could be used to allow users to find books on the shelf (even if the book is misshelved but near where it belongs) and to get metadata (like EBSCO or Amazon book ratings) while browsing in the stacks. We do not yet know whether we will build such tools, but there is definitely potential to use the tags in that way.
When do you expect this app to be ready for use?
Our goal is to have an alpha test in the Miami University Libraries, if they are willing, around Christmas time. If the alpha test goes well, we hope to add other sites (as beta testers) in the spring and summer of next year. The libraries have been tremendously helpful in educating us about the nitty-gritty details of the [Library of Congress] call number system and cataloguing processes. I have felt very welcomed by our librarians, and cheered by their enthusiasm about the project.
