LIBRARY REFERENCE SERVICES BASED ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Abstract

Libraries are commonly known for information acquisition and organization - for easy access. The third vital service rendered by the Library is the dissemination of the acquired information, which is more delicate than the acquisition services. Reference services fulfill this third library function which are especially, offered by Library Information Scientists. This arm of Library service, focuses on establishing prompt contacts between users and the right resources, thereby saving the research or searching time of the user. The advent of Digital Library Systems is known to have ignited the massive drift from the traditional library system, which is expected to influence the entire mode of Library service delivery. This further implies that Library Reference services now have to move from offering full human assistance to a digital solution. Data dissemination in the sphere of Information Technology (IT) has gone wild, especially with the implementation of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Since Libraries have decided to join the IT sphere, it is then expected to adopt such competitive dissemination technology for its Reference Services. Using Analytic induction - a model for qualitative research design, this study carefully examines Library reference services in relation to AI-based solutions for selective Information dissemination. The result of this study is a discussion on how AI, which has Machine Learning paradigm underneath, can now be tuned to Knowledge Assimilation and Dissemination agents in an academic digital Library.