TU Delft and the National Library of the Netherlands launch Future Libraries Lab

In today’s ever-changing information society, libraries are being forced to find new ways of offering their services. TU Delft and the National Library of the Netherlands (KB) are launching the Future Libraries Lab, a collaboration in which designers and computer scientists are joining forces to think about the library of the future. The alliance also helps libraries to develop new types of services, so that they can continue to provide their physical and digital collections to customers, but in innovative ways.

Design Lab for the library

Browsing through a book, looking up information, enjoying stories that come to life: the library is a place that brings us into contact with numerous sources of information, knowledge and culture. Digital technology has changed the way we use these sources. Take Artificial Intelligence, for example, and how it helps us to curate information, and Virtual Reality – how it can be used as a new way of viewing knowledge and culture.

It is important that libraries explore the opportunities offered by an increasingly digitalised society. These explorations are best carried out using a multidisciplinary approach: by means of knowledge relating to libraries and information, computer sciences and expertise in designing organisations and the services they provide. TU Delft initiated the Delft Design Labs concept to facilitate these multidisciplinary explorations. The Future Libraries Lab is the latest addition to this initiative.

Connecting and sharing knowledge

The Future Libraries Lab is a place for Master's students and researchers from the Faculties of Industrial Design Engineering (IDE) and Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (EEMCS) to conceptualise the library of the future. Working together and sharing knowledge enables ties to be forged between the public libraries, university libraries and knowledge institutions.

Alessandro Bozzon (Faculty of IDE, TU Delft): “Digitalisation makes it possible to convey new, personalised forms of content. Take audio books, podcasts and virtual reality, for example. In the Future Libraries Lab, we are studying the needs of users so that we can develop new, informative interactions and experiences for them.”

Martijn Kleppe (Head of Research at the KB): “Developing new types of services is a must for the library sector, but we also see it as a huge opportunity. We are looking forward to joining students and researchers from TU Delft to explore the possibilities that new technology can offer libraries.”

First projects

Parels van Drenthe (Pearls of Drenthe) and Describing Images are the first two projects being carried out in the lab. Parels van Drenthe is examining how new technology such as Augmented Reality (AR) can enhance the way that people living in Drenthe experience the extraordinary historical stories and objects that originate in their own province.

In the Describing Images project, researchers are searching for ways of making pictures in newspapers, magazines and books accessible to people with impaired sight. This project will explore and implement the possibilities of image recognition and Crowd Computing.

Libraries are welcome to join
TU Delft and the National Library of the Netherlands want the Future Libraries Lab to contribute to the innovative power of the library sector as a whole. Based on a network vision, the Future Libraries Lab's ambition is to work alongside public libraries and university libraries to find possible directions for solutions. Libraries are welcome to join the Future Libraries Lab. More information is available: https://delftdesignlabs.org/future-libraries-lab/.