Library Spaces and Smart Buildings: Technology, Metrics, and Iterative Design, edited by Jason Griffey

We are on the edge of a huge set of technological changes that will alter how we can measure library spaces. New advances in sensor technology, artificial intelligence and machine learning, computer vision, and more have brought the ability to monitor spaces in ways that were previously unthinkable. In Library Technology Reports (vol. 54, no. 1), “Library Spaces and Smart Buildings: Technology, Metrics, and Iterative Design,” I’ll explore these technologies and provide librarians and other interested parties with a look into what’s possible in the current state of technology for smart library buildings. Looking at three different projects that involved space metrics and analysis in libraries, this report shows how Virginia Tech; Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada; and the Measure the Future project are using technological tools to analyze library spaces to improve their environment for their users. Virginia Tech is researching how furniture movement acts as a stand-in for patron activity. Concordia University experimented with a project that monitored noise levels. The Measure the Future project is using computer vision to see how patrons move around in library spaces and derive “attention” measures from those movements while doing so with a strong protection on any sort of identification of patrons. Finally, we will look at what the next five to ten years of technological progress will bring and how that might change the possibilities for a smart library.