AUC Library Adopts New Learning Technologies

By: Bassel Hanna

@basselawsamw

The AUC library has installed new equipment and utilities that will facilitate use and access for students just in time for the Spring 2020 semester.

In addition to the old self-checkout equipment, the new hardware will allow students to check out books, review their account balance, and renew previously checked out books. A 3D interactive screen was also installed at the library plaza entrance.  

Self-checkout stations are not new in the library and have been a staple ever since the New Cairo campus was inaugurated in 2008. However, the new stations have additional features and are faster to use. 

The new interactive screen, Inside Explorer, was developed by the multi-million dollar company Interspectral. According to their website, they develop interactive and intuitive software with volumetric rendering and 3D-visualization of real captured data that allows students, for example, to look inside the human brain in 3D format. 

“You might not be a biologist, but it’s important to know more about some details about the human anatomy. You might not be an Egyptologist, but you might be interested in how the mummification process works. So, the whole idea is that this screen is more about presenting information,” said Lamia Eid, interim dean of Libraries and Learning Technologies. 

She continued to explain that efforts are being made, in collaboration with InterSpectral, that would facilitate employing this technology in helping students with their projects or coursework. 

The AUC library doesn’t plan to stop there. A host of new technological features should be implemented in the near future according to Mohamed Khalil, associate director of the automated services. There are plans to add self-service multifunctional printers, new devices in group study rooms, as well as adaptive needs technology for the visually impaired. 

“We already have student self-service printing through the legacy printers, but we are planning to introduce the multifunctional printers where a student can swipe their ID card and print their work. Through the new devices, you can photocopy materials even after the photocopying station closes,” said Khalil.

The new adaptive needs technologies include screen readers, screen magnifiers, speech-recognition, new specially-designated iPads that are only accessible to those with said needs, Braille notetaker (small, portable devices for storing information with the use of braille or typewriter keyboards according to the American Foundation for the Blind). 

“We are planning to establish a better well-studied or well-planned location for the visually impaired. We already had some software and hardware, but in preparation, we are planning to acquire more advanced versions,” said Eid. 

The library team are also studying the possibility of applying AUC Coin to the new self-serving technologies to further enhance their ease of use; however, it is still very early to tell if this can be implemented. 

They are also planning on enhancing the laptop component of the university’s Bring Your Own Device initiative, which allows students to borrow devices and use them inside the library. 

Their plan is to increase the number of laptops available to be borrowed by students as well as allowing students to take these devices off-campus and work with them wherever they need to.

“[The laptops] will be circulated for students for a week and they can take them home,” said Huguette Yaghmour, director of Library Automation Systems. 

All the changes being introduced by the library fit into a comprehensive strategy to boost services and facilities for the AUC community.

“We are reassessing our services and our operations. Whenever there is an operation that requires hand-to-hand technological assistance, we immediately study it and implement it,” said Eid.

The new hardware and stations are only available on the plaza and garden floors, the only floors operating around the clock in the library.

“We still have staff members who can help, however, in a year or so we’re restructuring this area in regards to what the staff role would be,” Eid added. 

When the library began implementing a new 24/7 policy this year, there was found to be a shortage of staff who could cover the night shift, which is why more self-serve facilities are being introduced. 

“We have limited resources so we only have two staff members to cover the night shift with one on each floor. And, of course, because of their other dedications, cost and vacations, sometimes there is only one staff member handling the two floors,” said Dina Hussein, administrator at the library. 

The library is also planning on surveying students in order to collect information on what facilities are being used most so that they can increase awareness of the presence of technologies that are not utilised as much or to improve heavily used technologies.