Robotics: An Interview with Dr. Arthur Harkins
Library Hi Tech · 1983
In the following interview Dr. Arthur Harkins — see last page for biographical information — responds to questions posed by Dr. Thomas Surprenant, Library Hi Tech Associate Editor and Assistant Professor at the University of Rhode Island Graduate Library School. Harkins opines that the era of robots is not merely imminent, in fact it is already with us. The development of the field of robotics is not Utopian or idealistic but, instead, “90% history.” Robotics and its future in library applications will be one of the four topics regularly covered by Surprenant in this column. (For some possible applications of robots in libraries see “Future Libraries,” Wilson Library Bulletin 57, no. 6 (February 1983): 499–500, 542.) Other topics to be covered in 2001 are new information technologies, public policy issues, and technology and values. — NJM