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.