I had to venture into a new part of the library today. The basement. Apparently that's where the health related books are found. But I discovered the coolest book shelves that I actually had to learn to use before proceeding to find my books. I noticed that the online catalogue mentioned that the books I was looking for were in the "condensed stacks", but I didn't think much about it and just jotted down the call numbers.
The "condensed stacks" are exactly that. The book shelves are on tracks that move together and apart in order to make more book shelves fit in a smaller space. But not only do the shelves move, they do so automatically. I arrived at the shelves I was looking for, but they were squished together. I was faced with a panel of buttons that took me a few seconds to sort out what I should do. I pushed the ">" button hoping the shelves would move apart so I could walk between them. However, the digital panel asked me to wait because there were people in the neighbouring aisle. Realizing I needed a book from there as well, I stepped into the aisle to the sound of a beep. The sensors let the shelves know whether or not there are people in a specific aisle. How cool. I had to stop myself from moving shelves at random just to watch the library stacks change shape to let people in and out.
1 comment:
You just better hope there's never a faulty connection. Someone could get squished! Sounds like a very cool technology.
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