Page 15 - Journal of Library Science in China 2020 Vol.46

014 Journal of Library Science in China, Vol.12, 2020

learning, natural language processing, robotics and automatic speech recognition. The AlphaGo
designed by Google has beat two world champions overwhelmingly in human-computer matches
since 2016. During the World Cup in 2018, Youku applied AI in video editing. Match highlights
were completed in no more than three minutes right after the match. E-commerce companies such
as the Alibaba Group and Jingdong built AI warehouses where intelligent sorting equipment was
used to achieve unmanned operation and efficiency of operation was improved substantially. The
unexpected circumstances reveal that the smart society is forthcoming. Some libraries abroad
have made some early explorations. The IFLA Trend Report-Literature Review (2013) considered
AI one of the four technological trends, and believed that the development of AI would bring
new chances for the transformation of the library. In China the Shenzhen Library introduced
the robot “Little Tuding” to help to provide the reference service in 2014. In 2017 the Nanjing
University Library began to use the robot to check the collection automatically. In 2018 the
Tsinghua University Library put the unmanned car into practice to carry books. On the whole,
however, the AI application in China lacks overall planning and has no substantially positive
effect on the core operations of the library. It still has a long way to go to carry out truly intelligent
services, especially when the smart library is not incorporated into the overall framework of smart
city system. For the first time “smart society” was referred to in the report of the 19th National
Congress of the CPC. It was parallel to building China’s strength in science and technology,
product quality, aerospace, cyberspace, and transportation as well as digital China, which was a
new requirement for the building of smart cities. In recent years the central government and local
governments have issued some documents about building the smart city, in which smart public
services are included. For instance, the Notice of the Shenzhen Municipal People’s Government
on the General Plan for the Construction of a New Smart City (Shenzhen Municipal People’s
Government, 2018) put forward that the development goal of six “one” should be realized by 2020
which included “one picture to get all, one number to go through Shenzhen, one key to know,
one system with interconnected operation, one platform to innovate and start a business and one
screen to enjoy life”. “One screen to enjoy life” requires the government, enterprises and social
organizations to provide services related to the public life, build the integrated service platform
so that the citizens can enjoy high-quality services conveniently through mobile terminals such as
mobile phones. Making advantage of the chance of building the smart city, the library should take
the initiative to plan and boost the smart development and services under the overall framework of
smart public services.
The introduction of equipment alone cannot make the library smart. It is a process that remodels
the library’s resources, space, services and even administrative activities through AI technologies.
Consequently, we need to explore in the following four aspects: 1) To connect online and offline
collections by applying new knowledge organization technologies, and to integrate resources
outside the library to provide smarter resource search and push service; 2) To revamp the library
space and facilities by the use of AI technologies to provide diversified services; 3) To analyze