The virtual librarian

Peter van Boheemen, Wageningen University & Research Library

Since your library user will not visit your library web site and will not use your library catalogue but will find what they need by browsing the internet, why not use browser plug-in technology to build a virtual librarian, that will travel with the user across any web site and assist the user when it is relevant.

Extra questions

These questions were asked during the session chat but not answered during the session.

Q: How do you make people install the browser extension needed? (by Till Kinstler)

A: That is one of the reasons we would like to involve library plugin manufacturers. You do not want to ask people to install many plugins. We are now using the Lean Library plugin to grant people access to restricted resources. We are quite surprised by the way it has been adopted by our staff and students. And the covid-19 crisis has actually created further adoption. Because of this we are trying to work with them as plugin developers. However, we would like to promote an open ecosystem of library API’s that can be addressed by the plugin, so any plugin developer would be able to use them.

Q: Is this Lean Library? (by Lukas Koster)

A: For us that would be the first plugin developer we would like to work with because almost all dutch universities use this plugin, they are willing to cooperate and this development seems to be aligned with their future development plans.