Interactive app uses emotions to choose books
The future of choosing which book to read might come down to the look on your face.
Auckland Libraries is hosting an interactive computer programme designed by young innovators that factored in emotions, weather and time to recommend the best book to read.
All the reader needed to do was push a button at the library, which would trigger a photo to be taken of the person.
Then the computer, which used Microsoft artificial intelligence software, would recommend a book based on the information it received
So far 40 books have been integrated into the programme from the library’s lesser known basement collection, including Switch Bitch by Roald Dahl and Death in the Afternoon by Ernest Hemingway.
Another 40 would be installed later in the week.
Student developers Jamie McDonald, Jason Guan, Niki Siasoco and Noel D’Souza, said as far as they were aware no one else was doing what they had done to make libraries more immersive.
Depending on whether someone was feeling mad on a sunny morning, or happy on a rainy afternoon, radically different books would be chosen, McDonald said.
Earlier this year the New Zealand Book Council commissioned a survey called Book Reading in New Zealand to better understand Kiwis’ reading habits.
The survey, which was conducted by Horizon Research, found that 394,000 New Zealand adults had not even started reading a book in 2016.
Auckland Central City librarian Sean Taylor said the unnamed software would help struggling readers decide what to read next.
The library wanted to start small with really interesting books - books taken from the base- ment collections, ones that weren’t usually requested, Taylor said.
While Google had a ‘I’m feeling lucky’ feature, this could be the future for serendipitous book selection, Taylor said.
The project sprung up after the four students won a prize worth $20,000 through Velocity, an entrepreneurial development programme at University of Auckland.
The trial will go until September 23.
‘‘This could be the future for serendipitous book selection.’’